John Cam HOBHOUSE, Baron Broughton (1786-1869)

Autograph Letter Signed (“John Hobhouse”) to Henry Driver, responding to his pamphlet Byron and the Abbey.

4 pages 8vo together with the envelope cover and seal, Torquay, 10 January 1839.   

“I have just received your letter with the several copies of your pamphlet. I beg to thank you for both - & to assure you that the personal friends of Lord Byron must feel, if they have the same sentiments as myself, much indebted to you for your exertions to put down an absurd & illiberal prejudice against him.

I am not sure that Mr. Leader was judicious in bringing the conduct of the Dean of Westminster before parliament because, undoubtedly, the Dean has the law on his side – and I am afraid that, if the subject should be discussed in the House of Commons again, no satisfactory result will be produced, at least not in the first instance.”

The now neglected, or perhaps one should say forgotten, poet, Henry Austin Driver was a great admirer of Lord Byron, and campaigned for several years for the establishment of a proper memorial to the great poet. Part of this campaign was the publication of his pamphlet Byron and the Abbey.  It is hardly surprising that he sent a copy of this pamphlet to Byron’s early and faithful friend, John Hobhouse.

Hobhouse had first encountered Byron while studying at Trinity College, Cambridge (Driver was himself from Cambridge, which may have encouraged his interest and admiration). Hobhouse accompanied Byron on some of his travels, and the two men remained close, regardless of the scandals associated with the poet.

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