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He of 1766 had aimed at the destruction of Slavdom. He of 1902 thought Serbia far less dangerous than Bulgaria. Firmilian was duly consecrated in June, 1902 a small straw showing that Russia had begun to blow Serbwards. She began to see she could not afford to have a powerful Bulgaria between herself and Constantinople.
The copy has a peculiar interest; it once belonged to Aytoun, the writer of "The Scottish Cavaliers," of "The Bon Gaultier Ballads," and of "Firmilian," the scourge of the Spasmodic School. Mr. Aytoun has adorned the margins with notes and with caricatures of skulls and cross-bones, while the fly-leaves bear a sonnet to the author, and a lyric in doggerel.
If it had been true, as is commonly said, that the before-mentioned Firmilian killed the so-called Spasmodic School, Aytoun's failure to attain the upper regions of poetry would have been a just judgment; for the persons whom he satirised, though less clever and humorous, were undoubtedly more poetical than himself.
The Fates were kind, and I started for Salonika at a few days' notice, travelling almost straight through. Serbia was depressed and anxious, I gathered from my fellow travellers, as we passed through it. Bishop Firmilian, whose election to the see of Uskub the Serbs had with great difficulty obtained in June 1902, had just died. The train was full of ecclesiastics going to his funeral at Uskub.
Maud was threatened with a broadside from "that pompholygous, broad-blown Apollodorus, the gifted X." People who have read Aytoun's diverting Firmilian, where Apollodorus plays his part, and who remember "gifted Gilfillan" in Waverley, know who the gifted X. was. But X. was no great authority south of Tay.
Dobell's Balder, and parodied in Firmilian may have been the basis of a report afterwards circulated, and accepted among others by Goethe, that his lordship had committed a murder; hence, obviously, the character of Lara, and the mystery of Manfred! They then separated, and Byron went on to Patras in the Morea, where he had business with the Consul. He dates from there at the close of July.
Other works were The Bon Gaultier Ballads, jointly with Theodore Martin, and Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy, under the nom-de-plume of T. Percy Jones, intended to satirise a group of poets and critics, including Gilfillan, Dobell, Bailey, and Alexander Smith.
Russia had aided his election very considerably. It had coincided with Russia's support of Petar Karageorgevitch to the throne of Serbia, and all was part of Russia's new Balkan plans in which Serbia was to play a leading role. Petar was not received by Europe. Firmilian was dead. Serbia was anxious.
They buried Firmilian on Christmas Day in the morning, dreading the while lest they were burying the bishopric too, so far as Serbia was concerned and I reached Salonika that night. The tale of the relief work I have told elsewhere. I will now touch only on the racial questions.