Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 1
by Thomas Moore · English · Gutenberg #17684 · 585,011 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 1
Author: Thomas Moore
Release date: February 6, 2006 [eBook #17684]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17684
Credits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF LORD BYRON, VOL. 1 ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
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Transcriber's Note:
This is the first volume of the Six volume series
Life of Lord Byron
with his Letters and Journals
by
Thomas Moore.
Links to the other five volumes.
Volume Two. E-Text No.16570--https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16570
Volume Three. E-Text No.16548--https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16548
Volume Four. E-Text No.16549--https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16549
Volume Five. E-Text No.16609--https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16609
Volume Six. E-Text No.14841--https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14841
LIFE
OF
LORD BYRON:
WITH HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS.
BY THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.
IN SIX VOLUMES.--VOL. I.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1854.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE, TO
THE PERIOD OF HIS RETURN FROM THE CONTINENT, JULY, 1811.
TO
SIR WALTER SCOTT, BARONET,
THESE VOLUMES
ARE INSCRIBED
BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND,
THOMAS MOORE.
December, 1829.
PREFACE
TO THE
FIRST VOLUME OF THE FIRST EDITION.[1]
In presenting these Volumes to the public I should have felt, I own,
considerable diffidence, from a sincere distrust in my own powers of
doing justice to such a task, were I not well convinced that there is
in the subject itself, and in the rich variety of materials here
brought to illustrate it, a degree of attraction and interest which it
would be difficult, even for hands the most unskilful, to extinguish.
However lamentable were the circumstances under which Lord Byron
became estranged from his country, to his long absence from England,
during the most brilliant period of his powers, we are indebted for
all those interesting letters which compose the greater part of the
Second Volume of this work, and which will be found equal, if not
superior, in point of vigour, variety, and liveliness, to any that
have yet adorned this branch of our literature.
What has been said of Petrarch, that "his correspondence and verses
together afford the progressive interest of a narrative in which the
poet is always identified with the man," will be found applicable, in
a far greater degree, to Lord Byron, in whom the literary and the
personal character were so closely interwoven, that to have left his
works without the instructive commentary which his Life and
Correspondence afford, would have been equally an injustice both to
himself and to the world.
PREFACE
TO THE
SECOND VOLUME OF THE FIRST EDITION.
The favourable reception which I ventured to anticipate for the First
Volume of this work has been, to the full extent of my expectations,
realised; and I may without scruple thus advert to the success it has
met with, being well aware that to the interest of the subject and the
materials, not to any merit of the editor, such a result is to be
attributed. Among the less agreeable, though not least valid, proofs
of this success may be counted the attacks which, from more than one
quarter, the Volume has provoked;--attacks angry enough, it must be
confessed, but, from their very anger, impotent, and, as containing
nothing whatever in the shape either of argument or fact, not
entitled, I may be pardoned for saying, to the slightest notice.
Of a very different description, both as regards the respectability of
the source from whence it comes, and the mysterious interest involved
in its contents, is a document which made its appearance soon after
the former Volume,[2] and which I have annexed, without a single line
of comment, to the present;--contenting myself, on this painful
subject, with entreating the reader's attention to some extracts, as
beautiful as they are, to my mind, convincing, from an unpublished
pamphlet of Lord Byron, which will be found in the following pages.[3]
Sanguinely as I was led to augur of the reception of our First Volume,
of the success of that which we now present to the public, I am
disposed to feel even still more confident. Though self-banished from
England, it was plain that to England alone Lord Byron continued to
look, throughout the remainder of his days, not only as the natural
theatre of his literary fame, but as the tribunal to which all his
thoughts, feelings, virtues, and frailties were to be referred; and
the exclamation of Alexander, "Oh, Athenians, how much it costs me to
obtain your praises!" might have been, with equal truth, addressed by
the noble exile to his countrymen. To keep the minds of the English
public for ever occupied about him,--if not with his merits, with his
faults; if not in applauding, in blaming him,--was, day and night,
the constant ambition of his soul; and in the correspondence he so
regularly maintained with his publisher, one of the chief mediums
through which this object was to be effected lay. Mr. Murray's house
being then, as now, the resort of most of those literary men who are,
at the same time, men of the world, his Lordship knew that whatever
particulars he might wish to make public concerning himself, would, if
transmitted to that quarter, be sure to circulate from thence
throughout society. It was on this presumption that he but rarely, as
we shall find him more than once stating, corresponded with any others
of his friends at home; and to the mere accident of my having been,
myself, away from England, at the time, was I indebted for the
numerous and no less interesting letters with which, during the same
period, he honoured me, and which now enrich this volume.
In these two sets of correspondence (given, as they are here, with as
little suppression as a regard to private feelings and to certain
other considerations, warrants) will be found a complete history, from
the pen of the poet himself, of the course of his life and thoughts,
during this most energetic period of his whole career;--presenting
altogether so wide a canvass of animated and, often, unconscious
self-portraiture, as even the communicative spirit of genius has
seldom, if ever, before bestowed on the world.
Some insinuations, calling into question the disinterestedness of the
lady whose fate was connected with that of Lord Byron during his
latter years, having been brought forward, or rather revived, in a
late work, entitled "Galt's Life of Byron,"--a work wholly unworthy of
the respectable name it bears,--I may be allowed to adduce here a
testimony on this subject, which has been omitted in its proper
place,[4] but which will be more than sufficient to set the idle
calumny at rest. The circumstance here alluded to may be most clearly,
perhaps, communicated to my readers through the medium of the
following extract from a letter, which Mr. Barry (the friend and
banker of Lord Byron) did me the favour of addressing to me soon after
his Lordship's death[5]:--"When Lord Byron went to Greece, he gave me
orders to advance money to Madame G----; but that lady would never
consent to receive any. His Lordship had also told me that he meant to
leave his will in my hands, and that there would be a bequest in it of
10,000_l._ to Madame G----. He mentioned this circumstance also to
Lord Blessington. When the melancholy news of his death reached me, I
took for granted that this will would be found among the sealed papers
he had left with me; but there was no such instrument. I immediately
then wrote to Madame G----, enquiring if she knew any thing concerning
it, and mentioning, at the same time, what his Lordship had said as to
the legacy. To this the lady replied, that he had frequently spoken to
her on the same subject, but that she had always cut the conversation
short, as it was a topic she by no means liked to hear him speak upon.
In addition, she expressed a wish that no such will as I had mentioned
would be found; as her circumstances were already sufficiently
independent, and the world might put a wrong construction on her
attachment, should it appear that her fortunes were, in any degree,
bettered by it."
NOTICES
OF THE
LIFE OF LORD BYRON.
It has been said of Lord Byron, "that he was prouder of being a
descendant of those Byrons of Normandy, who accompanied William the
Conqueror into England, than of having been the author of Childe
Harold and Manfred." This remark is not altogether unfounded in truth.
In the character of the noble poet, the pride of ancestry was
undoubtedly one of the most decided features; and, as far as antiquity
alone gives lustre to descent, he had every reason to boast of the
claims of his race. In Doomsday-book, the name of Ralph de Burun ranks
high among the tenants of land in Nottinghamshire; and in the
succeeding reigns, under the title of Lords of Horestan Castle,[6] we
find his descendants holding considerable possessions in Derbyshire;
to which, afterwards, in the time of Edward I., were added the lands
of Rochdale in Lancashire. So extensive, indeed, in those early times,
was the landed wealth of the family, that the partition of their
property, in Nottinghamshire alone, has been sufficient to establish
some of the first families of the county.
Its antiquity, however, was not the only distinction by which the name
of Byron came recommended to its inheritor; those personal merits and
accomplishments, which form the best ornament of a genealogy, seem to
have been displayed in no ordinary degree by some of his ancestors. In
one of his own early poems, alluding to the achievements of his race,
he commemorates, with much satisfaction, those "mail-covered barons"
among them,
who proudly to battle
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain.
Adding,
Near Askalon's towers John of Horiston slumbers,
Unnerved is the hand of his minstrel by death.
As there is no record, however, as far as I can discover, of any of
his ancestors having been engaged in the Holy Wars, it is possible
that he may have had no other authority for this notion than the
tradition which he found connected with certain strange groups of
heads, which are represented on the old panel-work, in some of the
chambers at Newstead. In one of these groups, consisting of three
heads, strongly carved and projecting from the panel, the centre
figure evidently represents a Saracen or Moor, with an European female
on one side of him, and a Christian soldier on the other. In a second
group, which is in one of the bed-rooms, the female occupies the
centre, while on each side is the head of a Saracen, with the eyes
fixed earnestly upon her. Of the exact meaning of these figures there
is nothing certain known; but the tradition is, I understand, that
they refer to some love-adventure, in which one of those crusaders, of
whom the young poet speaks, was engaged.
Of the more certain, or, at least, better known exploits of the
family, it is sufficient, perhaps, to say, that, at the siege of
Calais under Edward III., and on the fields, memorable in their
respective eras, of Cressy, Bosworth, and Marston Moor, the name of
the Byrons reaped honours both of rank and fame, of which their young
descendant has, in the verses just cited, shown himself proudly
conscious.
It was in the reign of Henry VIII., on the dissolution of the
monasteries, that, by a royal grant, the church and priory of
Newstead, with the lands adjoining, were added to the other
possessions of the Byron family.[7] The favourite upon whom these
spoils of the ancient religion were conferred, was the grand-nephew
of the gallant soldier who fought by the side of Richmond at Bosworth,
and is distinguished from the other knights of the same Christian name
in the family, by the title of "Sir John Byron the Little, with the
great beard." A portrait of this personage was one of the few family
pictures with which the walls of the abbey, while in the possession of
the noble poet, were decorated.
At the coronation of James I. we find another representative of the
family selected as an object of royal favour,--the grandson of Sir
John Byron the Little, being, on this occasion, made a knight of the
Bath. There is a letter to this personage, preserved in Lodge's
Illustrations, from which it appears, that notwithstanding all these
apparent indications of prosperity, the inroads of pecuniary
embarrassment had already begun to be experienced by this ancient
house. After counselling the new heir as to the best mode of getting
free of his debts, "I do therefore advise you," continues the
writer,[8] "that so soon as you have, in such sort as shall be fit,
finished your father's funerals, to dispose and disperse that great
household, reducing them to the number of forty or fifty, at the most,
of all sorts; and, in my opinion, it will be far better for you to
live for a time in Lancashire rather than in Notts, for many good
reasons that I can tell you when we meet, fitter for words than
writing."
From the following reign (Charles I.) the nobility of the family date
its origin. In the year 1643, Sir John Byron, great grandson of him
who succeeded to the rich domains of Newstead, was created Baron Byron
of Rochdale in the county of Lancaster; and seldom has a title been
bestowed for such high and honourable services as those by which this
nobleman deserved the gratitude of his royal master. Through almost
every page of the History of the Civil Wars, we trace his name in
connection with the varying fortunes of the king, and find him
faithful, persevering, and disinterested to the last. "Sir John
Biron," says the writer of Colonel Hutchinson's Memoirs, "afterwards
Lord Biron, and all his brothers, bred up in arms, and valiant men in
their own persons, were all passionately the king's." There is also,
in the answer which Colonel Hutchinson, when governor of Nottingham,
returned, on one occasion, to his cousin-german, Sir Richard Biron, a
noble tribute to the valour and fidelity of the family. Sir Richard
having sent to prevail on his relative to surrender the castle,
received for answer, that "except he found his own heart prone to such
treachery, he might consider there was, if nothing else, so much of a
Biron's blood in him, that he should very much scorn to betray or quit
a trust he had undertaken."
Such are a few of the gallant and distinguished personages, through
whom the name and honours of this noble house have been transmitted.
By the maternal side also Lord Byron had to pride himself on a line of
ancestry as illustrious as any that Scotland can boast,--his mother,
who was one of the Gordons of Gight, having been a descendant of that
Sir William Gordon who was the third son of the Earl of Huntley, by
the daughter of James I.
After the eventful period of the Civil Wars, when so many individuals
of the house of Byron distinguished themselves,--there having been no
less than seven brothers of that family on the field at Edgehill,--the
celebrity of the name appears to have died away for near a century. It
was about the year 1750, that the shipwreck and sufferings of Mr.
Byron[9] (the grandfather of the illustrious subject of these pages)
awakened, in no small degree, the attention and sympathy of the
public. Not long after, a less innocent sort of notoriety attached
itself to two other members of the family,--one, the grand-uncle of
the poet, and the other, his father. The former in the year 1765,
stood his trial before the House of Peers for killing, in a duel, or
rather scuffle, his relation and neighbour Mr. Chaworth; and the
latter, having carried off to the Continent the wife of Lord
Carmarthen, on the noble marquis obtaining a divorce from the lady,
married her. Of this short union one daughter only was the issue, the
Honourable Augusta Byron, now the wife of Colonel Leigh.
In reviewing thus cursorily the ancestors, both near and remote, of
Lord Byron, it cannot fail to be remarked how strikingly he combined
in his own nature some of the best and, perhaps, worst qualities that
lie scattered through the various characters of his predecessors,--the
generosity, the love of enterprise, the high-mindedness of some of the
better spirits of his race, with the irregular passions, the
eccentricity, and daring recklessness of the world's opinion, that so
much characterised others.
The first wife of the father of the poet having died in 1784, he, in
the following year, married Miss Catherine Gordon, only child and
heiress of George Gordon, Esq. of Gight. In addition to the estate of
Gight, which had, however, in former times, been much more extensive,
this lady possessed, in ready money, bank shares, &c. no
inconsiderable property; and it was known to be solely with a view of
relieving himself from his debts, that Mr. Byron paid his addresses to
her. A circumstance related, as having taken place before the marriage
of this lady, not only shows the extreme quickness and vehemence of
her feelings, but, if it be true that she had never at the time seen
Captain Byron, is not a little striking. Being at the Edinburgh
theatre one night when the character of Isabella was performed by Mrs.
Siddons, so affected was she by the powers of this great actress,
that, towards the conclusion of the play, she fell into violent fits,
and was carried out of the theatre, screaming loudly, "Oh, my Biron,
my Biron!"
On the occasion of her marriage there appeared a ballad by some Scotch
rhymer, which has been lately reprinted in a collection of the
"Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland;" and as it bears
testimony both to the reputation of the lady for wealth, and that of
her husband for rakery and extravagance, it may be worth extracting:--
MISS GORDON OF GIGHT.
O whare are ye gaen, bonny Miss Gordon?
O whare are ye gaen, sae bonny an' braw?
Ye've married, ye've married wi' Johnny Byron,
To squander the lands o' Gight awa'.
This youth is a rake, frae England he's come;
The Scots dinna ken his extraction ava;
He keeps up his misses, his landlord he duns,
That's fast drawen' the lands o' Gight awa'.
O whare are ye gaen, &c.
The shooten' o' guns, an' rattlin' o' drums,
The bugle in woods, the pipes i' the ha',
The beagles a howlin', the hounds a growlin';
These soundings will soon gar Gight gang awa'.
O whare are ye gaen, &c.
Soon after the marriage, which took place, I believe, at Bath, Mr.
Byron and his lady removed to their estate in Scotland; and it was
not long before the prognostics of this ballad-maker began to be
realised. The extent of that chasm of debt, in which her fortune was
to be swallowed up, now opened upon the eyes of the ill-fated heiress.
The creditors of Mr. Byron lost no time in pressing their demands; and
not only was the whole of her ready money, bank shares, fisheries,
&c., sacrificed to satisfy them, but a large sum raised by mortgage on
the estate for the same purpose. In the summer of 1786, she and her
husband left Scotland, to proceed to France; and in the following year
the estate of Gight itself was sold, and the whole of the purchase
money applied to the further payment of debts,--with the exception of
a small sum vested in trustees for the use of Mrs. Byron, who thus
found herself, within the short space of two years, reduced from
competence to a pittance of 150_l._ per annum.[10]
From France Mrs. Byron returned to England at the close of the year
1787; and on the 22d of January, 1788, gave birth, in Holles Street,
London, to her first and only child, George Gordon Byron. The name of
Gordon was added in compliance with a condition imposed by will on
whoever should become husband of the heiress of Gight; and at the
baptism of the child, the Duke of Gordon, and Colonel Duff of
Fetteresso, stood godfathers.
In reference to the circumstance of his being an only child, Lord
Byron, in one of his journals, mentions some curious coincidences in
his family, which, to a mind disposed as his was to regard every thing
connected with himself as out of the ordinary course of events, would
naturally appear even more strange and singular than they are. "I have
been thinking," he says, "of an odd circumstance. My daughter (1), my
wife (2), my half-sister (3), my mother (4), my sister's mother (5),
my natural daughter (6), and myself (7), are, or were, all _only_
children. My sister's mother (Lady Conyers) had only my half-sister by
that second marriage, (herself, too, an only child,) and my father had
only me, an only child, by his second marriage with my mother, an only
child too. Such a complication of _only_ children, all tending to
_one_ family, is singular enough, and looks like fatality almost." He
then adds, characteristically, "But the fiercest animals have the
fewest numbers in their litters, as lions, tigers, and even elephants,
which are mild in comparison."
From London, Mrs. Byron proceeded with her infant to Scotland; and, in
the year 1790, took up her residence in Aberdeen, where she was soon
after joined by Captain Byron. Here for a short time they lived
together in lodgings at the house of a person named Anderson, in Queen
Street. But their union being by no means happy, a separation took
place between them, and Mrs. Byron removed to lodgings at the other
end of the street.[11] Notwithstanding this schism, they for some
time continued to visit, and even to drink tea with each other; but
the elements of discord were strong on both sides, and their
separation was, at last, complete and final. He would frequently,
however, accost the nurse and his son in their walks, and expressed a
strong wish to have the child for a day or two, on a visit with him.
To this request Mrs. Byron was, at first, not very willing to accede,
but, on the representation of the nurse, that "if he kept the boy one
night, he would not do so another," she consented. The event proved as
the nurse had predicted; on enquiring next morning after the child,
she was told by Captain Byron that he had had quite enough of his
young visitor, and she might take him home again.
It should be observed, however, that Mrs. Byron, at this period, was
unable to keep more than one servant, and that, sent as the boy was on
this occasion to encounter the trial of a visit, without the
accustomed superintendence of his nurse, it is not so wonderful that
he should have been found, under such circumstances, rather an
unmanageable guest. That as a child, his temper was violent, or rather
sullenly passionate, is certain. Even when in petticoats, he showed
the same uncontrollable spirit with his nurse, which he afterwards
exhibited when an author, with his critics. Being angrily reprimanded
by her, one day, for having soiled or torn a new frock in which he had
been just dressed, he got into one of his "silent rages" (as he
himself has described them), seized the frock with both his hands,
rent it from top to bottom, and stood in sullen stillness, setting his
censurer and her wrath at defiance.
But, notwithstanding this, and other such unruly outbreaks,--in which
he was but too much encouraged by the example of his mother, who
frequently, it is said, proceeded to the same extremities with her
caps, gowns, &c.,--there was in his disposition, as appears from the
concurrent testimony of nurses, tutors, and all who were employed
about him, a mixture of affectionate sweetness and playfulness, by
which it was impossible not to be attached; and which rendered him
then, as in his riper years, easily manageable by those who loved and
understood him sufficiently to be at once gentle and firm enough for
the task. The female attendant of whom we have spoken, as well as her
sister, Mary Gray, who succeeded her, gained an influence over his
mind against which he very rarely rebelled; while his mother, whose
capricious excesses, both of anger and of fondness, left her little
hold on either his respect or affection, was indebted solely to his
sense of filial duty for any small portion of authority she was ever
able to acquire over him.
By an accident which, it is said, occurred at the time of his birth,
one of his feet was twisted out of its natural position, and this
defect (chiefly from the contrivances employed to remedy it) was a
source of much pain and inconvenience to him during his early years.
The expedients used at this period to restore the limb to shape, were
adopted by the advice, and under the direction, of the celebrated John
Hunter, with whom Dr. Livingstone of Aberdeen corresponded on the
subject; and his nurse, to whom fell the task of putting on these
machines or bandages, at bedtime, would often, as she herself told my
informant, sing him to sleep, or tell him stories and legends, in
which, like most other children, he took great delight. She also
taught him, while yet an infant, to repeat a great number of the
Psalms; and the first and twenty-third Psalms were among the earliest
that he committed to memory. It is a remarkable fact, indeed, that
through the care of this respectable woman, who was herself of a very
religious disposition, he attained a far earlier and more intimate
acquaintance with the Sacred Writings than falls to the lot of most
young people. In a letter which he wrote to Mr. Murray, from Italy, in
1821 after requesting of that gentleman to send him, by the first
opportunity, a Bible, he adds--"Don't forget this, for I am a great
reader and admirer of those books, and had read them through and
through before I was eight years old,--that is to say, the Old
Testament, for the New struck me as a task, but the other as a
pleasure. I speak as a boy, from the recollected impression of that
period at Aberdeen, in 1796."
The malformation of his foot was, even at this childish age, a subject
on which he showed peculiar sensitiveness. I have been told by a
gentleman of Glasgow, that the person who nursed his wife, and who
still lives in his family, used often to join the nurse of Byron when
they were out with their respective charges, and one day said to her,
as they walked together, "What a pretty boy Byron is! what a pity he
has such a leg!" On hearing this allusion to his infirmity, the
child's eyes flashed with anger, and striking at her with a little
whip which he held in his hand, he exclaimed impatiently, "Dinna speak
of it!" Sometimes, however, as in after life, he could talk
indifferently and even jestingly of this lameness; and there being
another little boy in the neighbourhood, who had a similar defect in
one of his feet, Byron would say, laughingly, "Come and see the twa
laddies with the twa club feet going up the Broad Street."
Among many instances of his quickness and energy at this age, his
nurse mentioned a little incident that one night occurred, on her
taking him to the theatre to see the "Taming of the Shrew." He had
attended to the performance, for some time, with silent interest; but,
in the scene between Catherine and Petruchio, where the following
dialogue takes place,--
_Cath._ I know it is the moon.
_Pet._ Nay, then, you lie,--it is the blessed sun,--
little Geordie (as they called the child), starting from his seat,
cried out boldly, "But I say it is the moon, sir."
The short visit of Captain Byron to Aberdeen has already been
mentioned, and he again passed two or three months in that city,
before his last departure for France. On both occasions, his chief
object was to extract still more money, if possible, from the
unfortunate woman whom he had beggared; and so far was he successful,
that, during his last visit, narrow as were her means, she contrived
to furnish him with the money necessary for his journey to
Valenciennes,[12] where, in the following year, 1791, he died. Though
latterly Mrs. Byron would not see her husband, she entertained, it is
said, a strong affection for him to the last; and on those occasions,
when the nurse used to meet him in her walks, would enquire of her
with the tenderest anxiety as to his health and looks. When the
intelligence of his death, too, arrived, her grief, according to the
account of this same attendant, bordered on distraction, and her
shrieks were so loud as to be heard in the street. She was, indeed, a
woman full of the most passionate extremes, and her grief and
affection were bursts as much of temper as of feeling. To mourn at
all, however, for such a husband was, it must be allowed, a most
gratuitous stretch of generosity. Having married her, as he openly
avowed, for her fortune alone, he soon dissipated this, the solitary
charm she possessed for him, and was then unmanful enough to taunt her
with the inconveniences of that penury which his own extravagance had
occasioned.
When not quite five years old, young Byron was sent to a day-school at
Aberdeen, taught by Mr. Bowers,[13] and remained there, with some
interruptions, during a twelvemonth, as appears by the following
extract from the day-book of the school:--
George Gordon Byron.
19th November, 1792.
19th November, 1793--paid one guinea.
The terms of this school for reading were only five shillings a
quarter, and it was evidently less with a view to the boy's advance in
learning than as a cheap mode of keeping him quiet that his mother had
sent him to it. Of the progress of his infantine studies at Aberdeen,
as well under Mr. Bowers as under the various other persons that
instructed him, we have the following interesting particulars
communicated by himself, in a sort of journal which he once began,
under the title of "My Dictionary," and which is preserved in one of
his manuscript books.
"For several years of my earliest childhood, I was in that city, but
have never revisited it since I was ten years old. I was sent, at five
years old, or earlier, to a school kept by a Mr. Bowers, who was
called '_Bodsy_ Bowers,' by reason of his dapperness. It was a school
for both sexes. I learned little there except to repeat by rote the
first lesson of monosyllables ('God made man'--'Let us love him'), by
hearing it often repeated, without acquiring a letter. Whenever proof
was made of my progress, at home, I repeated these words with the most
rapid fluency; but on turning over a new leaf, I continued to repeat
them, so that the narrow boundaries of my first year's accomplishments
were detected, my ears boxed, (which they did not deserve, seeing it
was by ear only that I had acquired my letters,) and my intellects
consigned to a new preceptor. He was a very devout, clever, little
clergyman, named Ross, afterwards minister of one of the kirks
(_East_, I think). Under him I made astonishing progress; and I
recollect to this day his mild manners and good-natured pains-taking.
The moment I could read, my grand passion was _history_, and, why I
know not, but I was particularly taken with the battle near the Lake
Regillus in the Roman History, put into my hands the first. Four years
ago, when standing on the heights of Tusculum, and looking down upon
the little round lake that was once Regillus, and which dots the
immense expanse below, I remembered my young enthusiasm and my old
instructor. Afterwards I had a very serious, saturnine, but kind young
man, named Paterson, for a tutor. He was the son of my shoemaker, but
a good scholar, as is common with the Scotch. He was a rigid
Presbyterian also. With him I began Latin in 'Ruddiman's Grammar,'
and continued till I went to the 'Grammar School, (_Scoticè_, 'Schule;
_Aberdonicè_, 'Squeel,') where I threaded all the classes to the
_fourth_, when I was recalled to England (where I had been hatched) by
the demise of my uncle. I acquired this handwriting, which I can
hardly read myself, under the fair copies of Mr. Duncan of the same
city: I don't think he would plume himself much upon my progress.
However, I wrote much better then than I have ever done since. Haste
and agitation of one kind or another have quite spoilt as pretty a
scrawl as ever scratched over a frank. The grammar-school might
consist of a hundred and fifty of all ages under age. It was divided
into five classes, taught by four masters, the chief teaching the
fourth and fifth himself. As in England, the fifth, sixth forms, and
monitors, are heard by the head masters."
Of his class-fellows at the grammar-school there are many, of course,
still alive, by whom he is well remembered;[14] and the general
impression they retain of him is, that he was a lively, warm-hearted,
and high-spirited boy--passionate and resentful, but affectionate and
companionable with his schoolfellows--to a remarkable degree venturous
and fearless, and (as one of them significantly expressed it) "always
more ready to give a blow than take one." Among many anecdotes
illustrative of this spirit, it is related that once, in returning
home from school, he fell in with a boy who had on some former
occasion insulted him, but had then got off unpunished--little Byron,
however, at the time, promising to "pay him off" whenever they should
meet again. Accordingly, on this second encounter, though there were
some other boys to take his opponent's part, he succeeded in
inflicting upon him a hearty beating. On his return home, breathless,
the servant enquired what he had been about, and was answered by him
with a mixture of rage and humour, that he had been paying a debt, by
beating a boy according to promise; for that he was a Byron, and would
never belie his motto, "_Trust Byron_."
He was, indeed, much more anxious to distinguish himself among his
school-fellows by prowess in all sports[15] and exercises, than by
advancement in learning. Though quick, when he could be persuaded to
attend, or had any study that pleased him, he was in general very low
in the class, nor seemed ambitious of being promoted any higher. It is
the custom, it seems, in this seminary, to invert, now and then, the
order of the class, so as to make the highest and lowest boys change
places,--with a view, no doubt, of piquing the ambition of both. On
these occasions, and only these, Byron was sometimes at the head, and
the master, to banter him, would say, "Now, George, man, let me see
how soon you'll be at the foot again."[16]
During this period, his mother and he made, occasionally, visits among
their friends, passing some time at Fetteresso, the seat of his
godfather, Colonel Duff, (where the child's delight with a humorous
old butler, named Ernest Fidler, is still remembered,) and also at
Banff, where some near connections of Mrs. Byron resided.
In the summer of the year 1796, after an attack of scarlet-fever, he
was removed by his mother for change of air into the Highlands; and it
was either at this time, or in the following year, that they took up
their residence at a farm-house in the neighbourhood of Ballater, a
favourite summer resort for health and gaiety, about forty miles up
the Dee from Aberdeen. Though this house, where they still show with
much pride the bed in which young Byron slept, has become naturally a
place of pilgrimage for the worshippers of genius, neither its own
appearance, nor that of the small bleak valley, in which it stands, is
at all worthy of being associated with the memory of a poet. Within a
short distance of it, however, all those features of wildness and
beauty, which mark the course of the Dee through the Highlands, may be
commanded. Here the dark summit of Lachin-y-gair stood towering before
the eyes of the future bard; and the verses in which, not many years
afterwards, he commemorated this sublime object, show that, young as
he was, at the time, its "frowning glories" were not unnoticed by
him.[17]
Ah, there my young footsteps in infancy wandered,
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid;
On chieftains long perish'd my memory ponder'd
As daily I strode through the pine-cover'd glade.
I sought not my home till the day's dying glory
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar-star;
For Fancy was cheer'd by traditional story,
Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch-na-gar.
To the wildness and grandeur of the scenes, among which his childhood
was passed, it is not unusual to trace the first awakening of his
poetic talent. But it may be questioned whether this faculty was ever
so produced. That the charm of scenery, which derives its chief power
from fancy and association, should be much felt at an age when fancy
is yet hardly awake, and associations but few, can with difficulty,
even making every allowance for the prematurity of genius, be
conceived. The light which the poet sees around the forms of nature is
not so much in the objects themselves as in the eye that contemplates
them; and Imagination must first be able to lend a glory to such
scenes, before she can derive inspiration _from_ them. As materials,
indeed, for the poetic faculty, when developed, to work upon, these
impressions of the new and wonderful retained from childhood, and
retained with all the vividness of recollection which belongs to
genius, may form, it is true, the purest and most precious part of
that aliment, with which the memory of the poet feeds his imagination.
But still, it is the newly-awakened power within him that is the
source of the charm;--it is the force of fancy alone that, acting upon
his recollections, impregnates, as it were, all the past with poesy.
In this respect, such impressions of natural scenery as Lord Byron
received in his childhood must be classed with the various other
remembrances which that period leaves behind--of its innocence, its
sports, its first hopes and affections--all of them reminiscences
which the poet afterwards converts to his use, but which no more
_make_ the poet than--to apply an illustration of Byron's own--the
honey can be said to make the bee that treasures it.
When it happens--as was the case with Lord Byron in Greece--that the
same peculiar features of nature, over which Memory has shed this
reflective charm, are reproduced before the eyes under new and
inspiring circumstances, and with all the accessories which an
imagination, in its full vigour and wealth, can lend them, then,
indeed, do both the past and present combine to make the enchantment
complete; and never was there a heart more borne away by this
confluence of feelings than that of Byron. In a poem, written about a
year or two before his death,[18] he traces all his enjoyment of
mountain scenery to the impressions received during his residence in
the Highlands; and even attributes the pleasure which he experienced
in gazing upon Ida and Parnassus, far less to classic remembrances,
than to those fond and deep-felt associations by which they brought
back the memory of his boyhood and Lachin-y-gair.
He who first met the Highland's swelling blue,
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue,
Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,
And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace.
Long have I roam'd through lands which are not mine,
Adored the Alp, and loved the Apennine,
Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep
Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep:
But 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all
Their nature held me in their thrilling thrall;
The infant rapture still survived the boy,
And Loch-na-gar with Ida look'd o'er Troy,
Mix'd Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount,
And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount.
In a note appended to this passage, we find him falling into that sort
of anachronism in the history of his own feelings, which I have above
adverted to as not uncommon, and referring to childhood itself that
love of mountain prospects, which was but the after result of his
imaginative recollections of that period.
"From this period" (the time of his residence in the Highlands) "I
date my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect,
a few years afterwards in England, of the only thing I had long seen,
even in miniature, of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. After I
returned to Cheltenham, I used to watch them every afternoon at
sunset, with a sensation which I cannot describe." His love of
solitary rambles, and his taste for exploring in all directions, led
him not unfrequently so far, as to excite serious apprehensions for
his safety. While at Aberdeen, he used often to steal from home
unperceived;--sometimes he would find his way to the sea-side; and
once, after a long and anxious search, they found the adventurous
little rover struggling in a sort of morass or marsh, from which he
was unable to extricate himself.
In the course of one of his summer excursions up Dee-side, he had an
opportunity of seeing still more of the wild beauties of the Highlands
than even the neighbourhood of their residence at Ballatrech afforded,
--having been taken by his mother through the romantic passes that
lead to Invercauld, and as far up as the small waterfall, called the
Linn of Dee. Here his love of adventure had nearly cost him his life.
As he was scrambling along a declivity that overhung the fall, some
heather caught his lame foot, and he fell. Already he was rolling
downward, when the attendant luckily caught hold of him, and was but
just in time to save him from being killed. It was about this period,
when he was not quite eight years old, that a feeling partaking more
of the nature of love than it is easy to believe possible in so young
a child, took, according to his own account, entire possession of his
thoughts, and showed how early, in this passion, as in most others,
the sensibilities of his nature were awakened.[19] The name of the
object of this attachment was Mary Duff; and the following passage
from a Journal, kept by him in 1813, will show how freshly, after an
interval of seventeen years, all the circumstances of this early love
still lived in his memory:--
"I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff. How very odd
that I should have been so utterly, devotedly fond of that girl, at an
age when I could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the
word. And the effect!--My mother used always to rally me about this
childish amour; and, at last, many years after, when I was sixteen,
she told me one day, 'Oh, Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh,
from Miss Abercromby, and your old sweetheart Mary Duff is married to
a Mr. Co^e.' And what was my answer? I really cannot explain or
account for my feelings at that moment; but they nearly threw me into
convulsions, and alarmed my mother so much, that after I grew better,
she generally avoided the subject--to _me_--and contented herself with
telling it to all her acquaintance. Now, what could this be? I had
never seen her since her mother's faux-pas at Aberdeen had been the
cause of her removal to her grandmother's at Banff; we were both the
merest children. I had and have been attached fifty times since that
period; yet I recollect all we said to each other, all our caresses,
her features, my restlessness, sleeplessness, my tormenting my
mother's maid to write for me to her, which she at last did, to quiet
me. Poor Nancy thought I was wild, and, as I could not write for
myself, became my secretary. I remember, too, our walks, and the
happiness of sitting by Mary, in the children's apartment, at their
house not far from the Plain-stones at Aberdeen, while her lesser
sister Helen played with the doll, and we sat gravely making love, in
our way.
"How the deuce did all this occur so early? where could it originate?
I certainly had no sexual ideas for years afterwards; and yet my
misery, my love for that girl were so violent, that I sometimes doubt
if I have ever been really attached since. Be that as it may, hearing
of her marriage several years after was like a thunder-stroke--it
nearly choked me--to the horror of my mother and the astonishment and
almost incredulity of every body. And it is a phenomenon in my
existence (for I was not eight years old) which has puzzled, and will
puzzle me to the latest hour of it; and lately, I know not why, the
_recollection_ (_not_ the attachment) has recurred as forcibly as
ever. I wonder if she can have the least remembrance of it or me? or
remember her pitying sister Helen for not having an admirer too? How
very pretty is the perfect image of her in my memory--her brown, dark
hair, and hazel eyes; her very dress! I should be quite grieved to see
_her now_; the reality, however beautiful, would destroy, or at least
confuse, the features of the lovely Peri which then existed in her,
and still lives in my imagination, at the distance of more than
sixteen years. I am now twenty-five and odd months....
"I think my mother told the circumstances (on my hearing of her
marriage) to the Parkynses, and certainly to the Pigot family, and
probably mentioned it in her answer to Miss A., who was well
acquainted with my childish _penchant_, and had sent the news on
purpose for _me_,--and thanks to her!
"Next to the beginning, the conclusion has often occupied my
reflections, in the way of investigation. That the facts are thus,
others know as well as I, and my memory yet tells me so, in more than
a whisper. But, the more I reflect, the more I am bewildered to assign
any cause for this precocity of affection."
Though the chance of his succession to the title of his ancestors was
for some time altogether uncertain--there being, so late as the year
1794, a grandson of the fifth lord still alive--his mother had, from
his very birth, cherished a strong persuasion that he was destined not
only to be a lord, but "a great man." One of the circumstances on
which she founded this belief was, singularly enough, his
lameness;--for what reason it is difficult to conceive, except that,
possibly (having a mind of the most superstitious cast), she had
consulted on the subject some village fortune-teller, who, to ennoble
this infirmity in her eyes, had linked the future destiny of the child
with it.
By the death of the grandson of the old lord at Corsica in 1794, the
only claimant, that had hitherto stood between little George and the
immediate succession to the peerage, was removed; and the increased
importance which this event conferred upon them was felt not only by
Mrs. Byron, but by the young future Baron of Newstead himself. In the
winter of 1797, his mother having chanced, one day, to read part of a
speech spoken in the House of Commons, a friend who was present said
to the boy, "We shall have the pleasure, some time or other, of
reading your speeches in the House of Commons."--"I hope not," was his
answer: "if you read any speeches of mine, it will be in the House of
Lords."
The title, of which he thus early anticipated the enjoyment, devolved
to him but too soon. Had he been left to struggle on for ten years
longer, as plain George Byron, there can be little doubt that his
character would have been, in many respects, the better for it. In the
following year his grand-uncle, the fifth Lord Byron, died at Newstead
Abbey, having passed the latter years of his strange life in a state
of austere and almost savage seclusion. It is said, that the day after
little Byron's accession to the title, he ran up to his mother and
asked her, "whether she perceived any difference in him since he had
been made a lord, as he perceived none himself:"--a quick and natural
thought; but the child little knew what a total and talismanic change
had been wrought in all his future relations with society, by the
simple addition of that word before his name. That the event, as a
crisis in his life, affected him, even at that time, may be collected
from the agitation which he is said to have manifested on the
important morning, when his name was first called out in school with
the title of "Dominus" prefixed to it. Unable to give utterance to the
usual answer "adsum," he stood silent amid the general stare of his
school-fellows, and, at last, burst into tears.
The cloud, which, to a certain degree, undeservedly, his unfortunate
affray with Mr. Chaworth had thrown upon the character of the late
Lord Byron, was deepened and confirmed by what it, in a great measure,
produced,--the eccentric and unsocial course of life to which he
afterwards betook himself. Of his cruelty to Lady Byron, before her
separation from him, the most exaggerated stories are still current in
the neighbourhood; and it is even believed that, in one of his fits of
fury, he flung her into the pond at Newstead. On another occasion, it
is said, having shot his coachman for some disobedience of orders, he
threw the corpse into the carriage to his lady, and, mounting the box,
drove off himself. These stories are, no doubt, as gross fictions as
some of those of which his illustrious successor was afterwards made
the victim; and a female servant of the old lord, still alive, in
contradicting both tales as scandalous fabrications, supposes the
first to have had its origin in the following circumstance:--A young
lady, of the name of Booth, who was on a visit at Newstead, being one
evening with a party who were diverting themselves in front of the
abbey, Lord Byron by accident pushed her into the basin which receives
the cascades; and out of this little incident, as my informant very
plausibly conjectures, the tale of his attempting to drown Lady Byron
may have been fabricated.
After his lady had separated from him, the entire seclusion in which
he lived gave full scope to the inventive faculties of his neighbours.
There was no deed, however dark or desperate, that the village gossips
were not ready to impute to him; and two grim images of satyrs, which
stood in his gloomy garden, were, by the fears of those who had caught
a glimpse of them, dignified by the name of "the old lord's devils."
He was known always to go armed; and it is related that, on some
particular occasion, when his neighbour, the late Sir John Warren, was
admitted to dine with him, there was a case of pistols placed, as if
forming a customary part of the dinner service, on the table.
During his latter years, the only companions of his solitude--besides
that colony of crickets, which he is said to have amused himself with
rearing and feeding[20]--were old Murray, afterwards the favourite
servant of his successor, and the female domestic, whose authority I
have just quoted, and who, from the station she was suspected of being
promoted to by her noble master, received generally through the
neighbourhood the appellation of "Lady Betty."
Though living in this sordid and solitary style, he was frequently, as
it appears, much distressed for money; and one of the most serious of
the injuries inflicted by him upon the property was his sale of the
family estate of Rochdale in Lancashire, of which the mineral produce
was accounted very valuable. He well knew, it is said, at the time of
the sale, his inability to make out a legal title; nor is it supposed
that the purchasers themselves were unacquainted with the defect of
the conveyance. But they contemplated, and, it seems, actually did
realise, an indemnity from any pecuniary loss, before they could, in
the ordinary course of events, be dispossessed of the property. During
the young lord's minority, proceedings were instituted for the
recovery of this estate, and as the reader will learn hereafter with
success.
At Newstead, both the mansion and the grounds around it were suffered
to fall helplessly into decay; and among the few monuments of either
care or expenditure which their lord left behind, were some masses of
rockwork, on which much cost had been thrown away, and a few
castellated buildings on the banks of the lake and in the woods. The
forts upon the lake were designed to give a naval appearance to its
waters, and frequently, in his more social days, he used to amuse
himself with sham fights,--his vessels attacking the forts, and being
cannonaded by them in return. The largest of these vessels had been
built for him at some seaport on the eastern coast, and, being
conveyed on wheels over the Forest to Newstead, was supposed to have
fulfilled one of the prophecies of Mother Shipton, which declared that
"when a ship laden with _ling_ should cross over Sherwood Forest, the
Newstead estate would pass from the Byron family." In Nottinghamshire,
"ling" is the term used for _heather_; and, in order to bear out
Mother Shipton and spite the old lord, the country people, it is said,
ran along by the side of the vessel, heaping it with heather all the
way.
This eccentric peer, it is evident, cared but little about the fate of
his descendants. With his young heir in Scotland he held no
communication whatever; and if at any time he happened to mention him,
which but rarely occurred, it was never under any other designation
than that of "the little boy who lives at Aberdeen."
On the death of his grand-uncle, Lord Byron having become a ward of
chancery, the Earl of Carlisle, who was in some degree connected with
the family, being the son of the deceased lord's sister, was appointed
his guardian; and in the autumn of 1798, Mrs. Byron and her son,
attended by their faithful Mary Gray, left Aberdeen for Newstead.
Previously to their departure, the furniture of the humble lodgings
which they had occupied was, with the exception of the plate and
linen, which Mrs. Byron took with her, sold, and the whole sum that
the effects of the mother of the Lord of Newstead yielded was 74_l._
17_s_. 7_d_.
From the early age at which Byron was taken to Scotland, as well as
from the circumstance of his mother being a native of that country, he
had every reason to consider himself--as, indeed, he boasts in Don
Juan--"half a Scot by birth, and bred a whole one." We have already
seen how warmly he preserved through life his recollection of the
mountain scenery in which he was brought up; and in the passage of Don
Juan, to which I have just referred, his allusion to the romantic
bridge of Don, and to other localities of Aberdeen, shows an equal
fidelity and fondness of retrospect:--
As Auld Lang Syne brings Scotland, one and all,
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams,
The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall,
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams
Of what I _then dreamt_, clothed in their own pall,
Like Banquo's offspring;--floating past me seems
My childhood in this childishness of mine;
I care not--'tis a glimpse of "Auld Lang Syne."
He adds in a note, "The Brig of Don, near the 'auld town' of Aberdeen,
with its one arch and its black deep salmon stream, is in my memory as
yesterday. I still remember, though perhaps I may misquote the awful
proverb which made me pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a
childish delight, being an only son, at least by the mother's side.
The saying, as recollected by me, was this, but I have never heard or
seen it since I was nine years of age:--
"'Brig of Balgounie, _black_'s your wa',
Wi' a wife's _ae son_, and a mear's ae foal,
Down ye shall fa'.'"[21]
To meet with an Aberdonian was, at all times, a delight to him; and
when the late Mr. Scott, who was a native of Aberdeen, paid him a
visit at Venice in the year 1819, in talking of the haunts of his
childhood, one of the places he particularly mentioned was
Wallace-nook, a spot where there is a rude statue of the Scottish
chief still standing. From first to last, indeed, these recollections
of the country of his youth never forsook him. In his early voyage
into Greece, not only the shapes of the mountains, but the kilts and
hardy forms of the Albanese,--all, as he says, "carried him back to
Morven;" and, in his last fatal expedition, the dress which he himself
chiefly wore at Cephalonia was a tartan jacket.
Cordial, however, and deep as were the impressions which he retained
of Scotland, he would sometimes in this, as in all his other amiable
feelings, endeavour perversely to belie his own better nature; and,
when under the excitement of anger or ridicule, persuade not only
others, but even himself, that the whole current of his feelings ran
directly otherwise. The abuse with which, in his anger against the
Edinburgh Review, he overwhelmed every thing Scotch, is an instance of
this temporary triumph of wilfulness; and, at any time, the least
association of ridicule with the country or its inhabitants was
sufficient, for the moment, to put all his sentiment to flight. A
friend of his once described to me the half playful rage, into which
she saw him thrown, one day, by a heedless girl, who remarked that she
thought he had a little of the Scotch accent. "Good God, I hope not!"
he exclaimed. "I'm sure I haven't. I would rather the whole d----d
country was sunk in the sea--I the Scotch accent!"
To such sallies, however, whether in writing or conversation, but
little weight is to be allowed,--particularly, in comparison with
those strong testimonies which he has left on record of his fondness
for his early home; and while, on his side, this feeling so indelibly
existed, there is, on the part of the people of Aberdeen, who consider
him as almost their fellow-townsman, a correspondent warmth of
affection for his memory and name. The various houses where he resided
in his youth are pointed out to the traveller; to have seen him but
once is a recollection boasted of with pride; and the Brig of Don,
beautiful in itself, is invested, by his mere mention of it, with an
additional charm. Two or three years since, the sum of five pounds was
offered to a person in Aberdeen for a letter which he had in his
possession, written by Captain Byron a few days before his death; and,
among the memorials of the young poet, which are treasured up by
individuals of that place, there is one which it would have not a
little amused himself to hear of, being no less characteristic a relic
than an old china saucer, out of which he had bitten a large piece, in
a fit of passion, when a child.
It was in the summer of 1798, as I have already said, that Lord Byron,
then in his eleventh year, left Scotland with his mother and nurse, to
take possession of the ancient seat of his ancestors. In one of his
latest letters, referring to this journey, he says, "I recollect Loch
Leven as it were but yesterday--I saw it in my way to England in
1798." They had already arrived at the Newstead toll-bar, and saw the
woods of the Abbey stretching out to receive them, when Mrs. Byron,
affecting to be ignorant of the place, asked the woman of the
toll-house--to whom that seat belonged? She was told that the owner of
it, Lord Byron, had been some months dead. "And who is the next heir?"
asked the proud and happy mother. "They say," answered the woman, "it
is a little boy who lives at Aberdeen."--"And this is he, bless him!"
exclaimed the nurse, no longer able to contain herself, and turning to
kiss with delight the young lord who was seated on her lap.
Even under the most favourable circumstances, such an early elevation
to rank would be but too likely to have a dangerous influence on the
character; and the guidance under which young Byron entered upon his
new station was, of all others, the least likely to lead him safely
through its perils and temptations. His mother, without judgment or
self-command, alternately spoiled him by indulgence, and irritated,
or--what was still worse--amused him by her violence. That strong
sense of the ridiculous, for which he was afterwards so remarkable,
and which showed itself thus early, got the better even of his fear of
her; and when Mrs. Byron, who was a short and corpulent person, and
rolled considerably in her gait, would, in a rage, endeavour to catch
him, for the purpose of inflicting punishment, the young urchin, proud
of being able to out-strip her, notwithstanding his lameness, would
run round the room, laughing like a little Puck, and mocking at all
her menaces. In a few anecdotes of his early life which he related in
his "Memoranda," though the name of his mother was never mentioned but
with respect, it was not difficult to perceive that the recollections
she had left behind--at least, those that had made the deepest
impression--were of a painful nature. One of the most striking
passages, indeed, in the few pages of that Memoir which related to his
early days, was where, in speaking of his own sensitiveness, on the
subject of his deformed foot, he described the feeling of horror and
humiliation that came over him, when his mother, in one of her fits of
passion, called him "a lame brat." As all that he had felt strongly
through life was, in some shape or other, reproduced in his poetry, it
was not likely that an expression such as this should fail of being
recorded. Accordingly we find, in the opening of his drama, "The
Deformed Transformed,"
_Bertha_. Out, hunchback!
_Arnold_. I was born so, mother!
It may be questioned, indeed, whether that whole drama was not
indebted for its origin to this single recollection.
While such was the character of the person under whose immediate eye
his youth was passed, the counteraction which a kind and watchful
guardian might have opposed to such example and influence was almost
wholly lost to him. Connected but remotely with the family, and never
having had any opportunity of knowing the boy, it was with much
reluctance that Lord Carlisle originally undertook the trust; nor can
we wonder that, when his duties as a guardian brought him acquainted
with Mrs. Byron, he should be deterred from interfering more than was
absolutely necessary for the child by his fear of coming into
collision with the violence and caprice of the mother.
Had even the character which the last lord left behind been
sufficiently popular to pique his young successor into an emulation of
his good name, such a salutary rivalry of the dead would have supplied
the place of living examples; and there is no mind in which such an
ambition would have been more likely to spring up than that of Byron.
But unluckily, as we have seen, this was not the case; and not only
was so fair a stimulus to good conduct wanting, but a rivalry of a
very different nature substituted in its place. The strange anecdotes
told of the last lord by the country people, among whom his fierce
and solitary habits had procured for him a sort of fearful renown,
were of a nature livelily to arrest the fancy of the young poet, and
even to waken in his mind a sort of boyish admiration for
singularities which he found thus elevated into matters of wonder and
record. By some it has been even supposed that in these stories of his
eccentric relative his imagination found the first dark outlines of
that ideal character, which he afterwards embodied in so many
different shapes, and ennobled by his genius. But however this may be,
it is at least far from improbable that, destitute as he was of other
and better models, the peculiarities of his immediate predecessor
should, in a considerable degree, have influenced his fancy and
tastes. One habit, which he seems early to have derived from this
spirit of imitation, and which he retained through life, was that of
constantly having arms of some description about or near him--it being
his practice, when quite a boy, to carry, at all times, small loaded
pistols in his waistcoat pockets. The affray, indeed, of the late lord
with Mr. Chaworth had, at a very early age, by connecting duelling in
his mind with the name of his race, led him to turn his attention to
this mode of arbitrament; and the mortification which he had, for some
time, to endure at school, from insults, as he imagined, hazarded on
the presumption of his physical inferiority, found consolation in the
thought that a day would yet arrive when the law of the pistol would
place him on a level with the strongest.
On their arrival from Scotland, Mrs. Byron, with the hope of having
his lameness removed, placed her son under the care of a person, who
professed the cure of such cases, at Nottingham. The name of this man,
who appears to have been a mere empirical pretender, was Lavender; and
the manner in which he is said to have proceeded was by first rubbing
the foot over, for a considerable time, with handsful of oil, and then
twisting the limb forcibly round, and screwing it up in a wooden
machine. That the boy might not lose ground in his education during
this interval, he received lessons in Latin from a respectable
schoolmaster, Mr. Rogers, who read parts of Virgil and Cicero with
him, and represents his proficiency to have been, for his age,
considerable. He was often, during his lessons, in violent pain, from
the torturing position in which his foot was kept; and Mr. Rogers one
day said to him, "It makes me uncomfortable, my Lord, to see you
sitting there in such pain as I _know_ you must be suffering."--"Never
mind, Mr. Rogers," answered the boy; "you shall not see any signs of
it in _me_."
This gentleman, who speaks with the most affectionate remembrance of
his pupil, mentions several instances of the gaiety of spirit with
which he used to take revenge on his tormentor, Lavender, by exposing
and laughing at his pompous ignorance. Among other tricks, he one day
scribbled down on a sheet of paper all the letters of the alphabet,
put together at random, but in the form of words and sentences, and,
placing them before this all-pretending person, asked him gravely
what language it was. The quack, unwilling to own his ignorance,
answered confidently, "Italian,"--to the infinite delight, as it may
be supposed, of the little satirist in embryo, who burst into a loud,
triumphant laugh at the success of the trap which he had thus laid for
imposture.
With that mindfulness towards all who had been about him in his youth,
which was so distinguishing a trait in his character, he, many years
after, when in the neighbourhood of Nottingham, sent a message, full
of kindness, to his old instructor, and bid the bearer of it tell him,
that, beginning from a certain line in Virgil which he mentioned, he
could recite twenty verses on, which he well remembered having read
with this gentleman, when suffering all the time the most dreadful
pain.
It was about this period, according to his nurse, May Gray, that the
first symptom of any tendency towards rhyming showed itself in him;
and the occasion which she represented as having given rise to this
childish effort was as follows:--An elderly lady, who was in the habit
of visiting his mother, had made use of some expression that very much
affronted him; and these slights, his nurse said, he generally
resented violently and implacably. The old lady had some curious
notions respecting the soul, which, she imagined, took its flight to
the moon after death, as a preliminary essay before it proceeded
further. One day, after a repetition, it is supposed, of her original
insult to the boy, he appeared before his nurse in a violent rage.
"Well, my little hero," she asked, "what's the matter with you now?"
Upon which the child answered, that "this old woman had put him in a
most terrible passion--that he could not bear the sight of her," &c.
&c.--and then broke out into the following doggerel, which he repeated
over and over, as if delighted with the vent he had found for his
rage:--
In Nottingham county there lives at Swan Green,
As curst an old lady as ever was seen;
And when she does die, which I hope will be soon,
She firmly believes she will go to the moon.
It is possible that these rhymes may have been caught up at
second-hand; and he himself, as will presently be seen, dated his
"first dash into poetry," as he calls it, a year later:--but the
anecdote altogether, as containing some early dawnings of character,
appeared to me worth preserving.
The small income of Mrs. Byron received at this time the
addition--most seasonable, no doubt, though on what grounds accorded,
I know not--of a pension on the Civil List, of 300_l._ a year. The
following is a copy of the King's warrant for the grant:--(Signed)
"GEORGE R.
"WHEREAS we are graciously pleased to grant unto Catharine
Gordon Byron, widow, an annuity of 300_l._, to commence from
5th July, 1799, and to continue during pleasure: our will
and pleasure is, that, by virtue of our general letters of
Privy Seal, bearing date 5th November, 1760, you do issue
and pay out of our treasure, or revenue in the receipt of
the Exchequer, applicable to the uses of our civil
government, unto the said Catharine Gordon Byron, widow, or
her assignees, the said annuity, to commence from 5th July,
1799, and to be paid quarterly, or otherwise, as the same
shall become due, and to continue during our pleasure; and
for so doing this shall be your warrant. Given at our Court
of St. James's, 2d October, 1799, 39th year of our reign.
"By His Majesty's command,
(Signed) "W. PITT.
"S. DOUGLAS.
"EDW^D. ROBERTS, Dep. Cler^us. Pellium."
Finding but little benefit from the Nottingham practitioner, Mrs.
Byron, in the summer of the year 1799, thought it right to remove her
boy to London, where, at the suggestion of Lord Carlisle, he was put
under the care of Dr. Baillie. It being an object, too, to place him
at some quiet school, where the means adopted for the cure of his
infirmity might be more easily attended to, the establishment of the
late Dr. Glennie, at Dulwich, was chosen for that purpose; and as it
was thought advisable that he should have a separate apartment to
sleep in, Dr. Glennie had a bed put up for him in his own study. Mrs.
Byron, who had remained a short time behind him at Newstead, on her
arrival in town took a house upon Sloane Terrace; and, under the
direction of Dr. Baillie, one of the Messrs. Sheldrake[22] was
employed to construct an instrument for the purpose of straightening
the limb of the child. Moderation in all athletic exercises was, of
course, prescribed; but Dr. Glennie found it by no means easy to
enforce compliance with this rule, as, though sufficiently quiet when
along with him in his study, no sooner was the boy released for play,
than he showed as much ambition to excel in all exercises as the most
robust youth of the school;--"an ambition," adds Dr. Glennie, in the
communication with which he favoured me a short time before his death,
"which I have remarked to prevail in general in young persons
labouring under similar defects of nature."[23]
Having been instructed in the elements of Latin grammar according to
the mode of teaching adopted at Aberdeen, the young student had now
unluckily to retrace his steps, and was, as is too often the case,
retarded in his studies and perplexed in his recollections, by the
necessity of toiling through the rudiments again in one of the forms
prescribed by the English schools. "I found him enter upon his tasks,"
says Dr. Glennie, "with alacrity and success. He was playful,
good-humoured, and beloved by his companions. His reading in history
and poetry was far beyond the usual standard of his age, and in my
study he found many books open to him, both to please his taste and
gratify his curiosity; among others, a set of our poets from Chaucer
to Churchill, which I am almost tempted to say he had more than once
perused from beginning to end. He showed at this age an intimate
acquaintance with the historical parts of the Holy Scriptures, upon
which he seemed delighted to converse with me, especially after our
religious exercises of a Sunday evening; when he would reason upon the
facts contained in the Sacred Volume with every appearance of belief
in the divine truths which they unfold. That the impressions," adds
the writer, "thus imbibed in his boyhood, had, notwithstanding the
irregularities of his after life, sunk deep into his mind, will
appear, I think, to every impartial reader of his works in general;
and I never have been able to divest myself of the persuasion that, in
the strange aberrations which so unfortunately marked his subsequent
career, he must have found it difficult to violate the better
principles early instilled into him."
It should have been mentioned, among the traits which I have recorded
of his still earlier years, that, according to the character given of
him by his first nurse's husband, he was, when a mere child,
"particularly inquisitive and puzzling about religion."
It was not long before Dr. Glennie began to discover--what instructors
of youth must too often experience--that the parent was a much more
difficult subject to deal with than the child. Though professing
entire acquiescence in the representations of this gentleman, as to
the propriety of leaving her son to pursue his studies without
interruption, Mrs. Byron had neither sense nor self-denial enough to
act up to these professions; but, in spite of the remonstrances of Dr.
Glennie, and the injunctions of Lord Carlisle, continued to interfere
with and thwart the progress of the boy's education in every way that
a fond, wrong-headed, and self-willed mother could devise. In vain was
it stated to her that, in all the elemental parts of learning which
are requisite for a youth destined to a great public school, young
Byron was much behind other youths of his age, and that, to retrieve
this deficiency, the undivided application of his whole time would be
necessary. Though appearing to be sensible of the truth of these
suggestions, she not the less embarrassed and obstructed the teacher
in his task. Not content with the interval between Saturday and
Monday, which, contrary to Dr. Glennie's wish, the boy generally
passed at Sloane Terrace, she would frequently keep him at home a week
beyond this time, and, still further to add to the distraction of such
interruptions, collected around him a numerous circle of young
acquaintances, without exercising, as may be supposed, much
discrimination in her choice. "How, indeed, could she?" asks Dr.
Glennie--"Mrs. Byron was a total stranger to English society and
English manners; with an exterior far from prepossessing, an
understanding where nature had not been more bountiful, a mind almost
wholly without cultivation, and the peculiarities of northern
opinions, northern habits, and northern accent, I trust I do no great
prejudice to the memory of my countrywoman, if I say Mrs. Byron was
not a Madame de Lambert, endowed with powers to retrieve the fortune,
and form the character and manners, of a young nobleman, her son."
The interposition of Lord Carlisle, to whose authority it was found
necessary to appeal, had more than once given a check to these
disturbing indulgences. Sanctioned by such support, Dr. Glennie even
ventured to oppose himself to the privilege, so often abused, of the
usual visits on a Saturday; and the scenes which he had to encounter
on each new case of refusal were such as would have wearied out the
patience of any less zealous and conscientious schoolmaster. Mrs.
Byron, whose paroxysms of passion were not, like those of her son,
"silent rages," would, on all these occasions, break out into such
audible fits of temper as it was impossible to keep from reaching the
ears of the scholars and the servants; and Dr. Glennie had, one day,
the pain of overhearing a school-fellow of his noble pupil say to him,
"Byron, your mother is a fool;" to which the other answered gloomily,
"I know it." In consequence of all this violence and impracticability
of temper, Lord Carlisle at length ceased to have any intercourse with
the mother of his ward; and on a further application from the
instructor, for the exertion of his influence, said, "I can have
nothing more to do with Mrs. Byron,--you must now manage her as you
can."
Among the books that lay accessible to the boys in Dr. Glennie's study
was a pamphlet written by the brother of one of his most intimate
friends, entitled, "Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Juno on the
coast of Arracan, in the year 1795." The writer had been the second
officer of the ship, and the account which he had sent home to his
friends of the sufferings of himself and his fellow-passengers had
appeared to them so touching and strange, that they determined to
publish it. The pamphlet attracted but little, it seems, of public
attention, but among the young students of Dulwich Grove it was a
favourite study; and the impression which it left on the retentive
mind of Byron may have had some share, perhaps, in suggesting that
curious research through all the various Accounts of Shipwrecks upon
record, by which he prepared himself to depict with such power a scene
of the same description in Don Juan. The following affecting incident,
mentioned by the author of this pamphlet, has been adopted, it will be
seen, with but little change either of phrase or circumstance, by the
poet:--
"Of those who were not immediately near me I knew little, unless by
their cries. Some struggled hard, and died in great agony; but it was
not always those whose strength was most impaired that died the
easiest, though, in some cases, it might have been so. I particularly
remember the following instances. Mr. Wade's servant, a stout and
healthy boy, died early and almost without a groan; while another of
the same age, but of a less promising appearance, held out much
longer. The fate of these unfortunate boys differed also in another
respect highly deserving of notice. Their fathers were both in the
fore-top when the lads were taken ill. The father of Mr. Wade's boy
hearing of his son's illness, answered with indifference, 'that he
could do nothing for him,' and left him to his fate. The other, when
the accounts reached him, hurried down, and watching for a favourable
moment, crawled on all fours along the weather gunwale to his son, who
was in the mizen rigging. By that time, only three or four planks of
the quarter deck remained, just over the weather-quarter gallery; and
to this spot the unhappy man led his son, making him fast to the rail
to prevent his being washed away. Whenever the boy was seized with a
fit of retching, the father lifted him up and wiped the foam from his
lips; and, if a shower came, he made him open his mouth to receive the
drops, or gently squeezed them into it from a rag. In this affecting
situation both remained four or five days, till the boy expired. The
unfortunate parent, as if unwilling to believe the fact, then raised
the body, gazed wistfully at it, and, when he could no longer
entertain any doubt, watched it in silence till it was carried off by
the sea; then, wrapping himself in a piece of canvass, sunk down and
rose no more; though he must have lived two days longer, as we judged
from the quivering of his limbs, when a wave broke over him."[24]
It was probably during one of the vacations of this year, that the
boyish love for his young cousin, Miss Parker, to which he attributes
the glory of having first inspired him with poetry, took possession of
his fancy. "My first dash into poetry (he says) was as early as 1800.
It was the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin, Margaret
Parker (daughter and grand-daughter of the two Admirals Parker), one
of the most beautiful of evanescent beings. I have long forgotten the
verses, but it would be difficult for me to forget her--her dark
eyes--her long eye-lashes--her completely Greek cast of face and
figure! I was then about twelve--she rather older, perhaps a year. She
died about a year or two afterwards, in consequence of a fall, which
injured her spine, and induced consumption. Her sister Augusta (by
some thought still more beautiful) died of the same malady; and it
was, indeed, in attending her, that Margaret met with the accident
which occasioned her own death. My sister told me, that when she went
to see her, shortly before her death, upon accidentally mentioning my
name, Margaret coloured through the paleness of mortality to the eyes,
to the great astonishment of my sister, who (residing with her
grandmother, Lady Holderness, and seeing but little of me, for family
reasons,) knew nothing of our attachment, nor could conceive why my
name should affect her at such a time. I knew nothing of her illness,
being at Harrow and in the country, till she was gone. Some years
after, I made an attempt at an elegy--a very dull one.[25]
"I do not recollect scarcely any thing equal to the _transparent_
beauty of my cousin, or to the sweetness of her temper, during the
short period of our intimacy. She looked as if she had been made out
of a rainbow--all beauty and peace.
"My passion had its usual effects upon me--I could not sleep--I could
not eat--I could not rest: and although I had reason to know that she
loved me, it was the texture of my life to think of the time which
must elapse before we could meet again, being usually about twelve
hours of separation! But I was a fool then, and am not much wiser
now."
He had been nearly two years under the tuition of Dr. Glennie, when
his mother, discontented at the slowness of his progress--though
being, herself, as we have seen, the principal cause of it--entreated
so urgently of Lord Carlisle to have him removed to a public school,
that her wish was at length acceded to; and "accordingly," says Dr.
Glennie, "to Harrow he went, as little prepared as it is natural to
suppose from two years of elementary instruction, thwarted by every
art that could estrange the mind of youth from preceptor, from school,
and from all serious study."
This gentleman saw but little of Lord Byron after he left his care;
but, from the manner in which both he and Mrs. Glennie spoke of their
early charge, it was evident that his subsequent career had been
watched by them with interest; that they had seen even his errors
through the softening medium of their first feeling towards him, and
had never, in his most irregular aberrations, lost the traces of those
fine qualities which they had loved and admired in him when a child.
Of the constancy, too, of this feeling, Dr. Glennie had to stand no
ordinary trial, having visited Geneva in 1817, soon after Lord Byron
had left it, when the private character of the poet was in the very
crisis of its unpopularity, and when, among those friends who knew
that Dr. Glennie had once been his tutor, it was made a frequent
subject of banter with this gentleman that he had not more strictly
disciplined his pupil, or, to use their own words, "made a better boy
of him."
About the time when young Byron was removed, for his education, to
London, his nurse May Gray left the service of Mrs. Byron, and
returned to her native country, where she died about three years
since. She had married respectably, and in one of her last illnesses
was attended professionally by Dr. Ewing of Aberdeen, who, having been
always an enthusiastic admirer of Lord Byron, was no less surprised
than delighted to find that the person tinder his care had for so many
years been an attendant on his favourite poet. With avidity, as may be
supposed, he noted down from the lips of his patient all the
particulars she could remember of his Lordship's early days; and it is
to the communications with which this gentleman has favoured me, that
I am indebted for many of the anecdotes of that period which I have
related.
As a mark of gratitude for her attention to him, Byron had, in parting
with May Gray, presented her with his watch,--the first of which he
had ever been possessor. This watch the faithful nurse preserved
fondly through life, and, when she died, it was given by her husband
to Dr. Ewing, by whom, as a relic of genius, it is equally valued. The
affectionate boy had also presented her with a full-length miniature
of himself, which was painted by Kay of Edinburgh, in the year 1795,
and which represents him standing with a bow and arrows in his hand,
and a profusion of hair falling over his shoulders. This curious
little drawing has likewise passed into the possession of Dr. Ewing.
The same thoughtful gratitude was evinced by Byron towards the sister
of this woman, his first nurse, to whom he wrote some years after he
left Scotland, in the most cordial terms, making enquiries of her
welfare, and informing her, with much joy, that he had at last got his
foot so far restored as to be able to put on a common boot,--"an event
for which he had long anxiously wished, and which he was sure would
give her great pleasure."
In the summer of the year 1801 he accompanied his mother to
Cheltenham, and the account which he himself gives of his sensations
at that period[26] shows at what an early age those feelings that lead
to poetry had unfolded themselves in his heart. A boy, gazing with
emotion on the hills at sunset, because they remind him of the
mountains among which he passed his childhood, is already, in heart
and imagination, a poet. It was during their stay at Cheltenham that a
fortune-teller, whom his mother consulted, pronounced a prediction
concerning him which, for some time, left a strong impression on his
mind. Mrs. Byron had, it seems, in her first visit to this person,
(who, if I mistake not, was the celebrated fortune-teller, Mrs.
Williams,) endeavoured to pass herself off as a maiden lady. The
sibyl, however, was not so easily deceived;--she pronounced her wise
consulter to be not only a married woman, but the mother of a son who
was lame, and to whom, among other events which she read in the stars,
it was predestined that his life should be in danger from poison
before he was of age, and that he should be twice married,--the second
time, to a foreign lady. About two years afterwards he himself
mentioned these particulars to the person from whom I heard the
story, and said that the thought of the first part of the prophecy
very often occurred to him. The latter part, however, seems to have
been the _nearer_ guess of the two.
To a shy disposition, such as Byron's was in his youth--and such as,
to a certain degree, it continued all his life--the transition from a
quiet establishment, like that of Dulwich Grove, to the bustle of a
great public school was sufficiently trying. Accordingly, we find from
his own account, that, for the first year and a half, he "hated
Harrow." The activity, however, and sociableness of his nature soon
conquered this repugnance; and, from being, as he himself says, "a
most unpopular boy," he rose at length to be a leader in all the
sports, schemes, and mischief of the school.
For a general notion of his dispositions and capacities at this
period, we could not have recourse to a more trust-worthy or valuable
authority than that of the Rev. Dr. Drury, who was at this time head
master of the school, and to whom Lord Byron has left on record a
tribute of affection and respect, which, like the reverential regard
of Dryden for Dr. Busby, will long associate together honourably the
names of the poet and the master. From this venerable scholar I have
received the following brief, but important statement of the
impressions which his early intercourse with the young noble left upon
him:--
"Mr. Hanson, Lord Byron's solicitor, consigned him to my care at the
age of 13-1/2, with remarks, that his education had been neglected;
that he was ill prepared for a public school, but that he thought
there was a _cleverness_ about him. After his departure I took my
young disciple into my study, and endeavoured to bring him forward by
enquiries as to his former amusements, employments, and associates,
but with little or no effect;--and I soon found that a wild mountain
colt had been submitted to my management. But there was mind in his
eye. In the first place, it was necessary to attach him to an elder
boy, in order to familiarise him with the objects before him, and with
some parts of the system in which he was to move. But the information
he received from his conductor gave him no pleasure, when he heard of
the advances of some in the school, much younger than himself, and
conceived by his own deficiency that he should be degraded, and
humbled, by being placed below them. This I discovered, and having
committed him to the care of one of the masters, as his tutor, I
assured him he should not be placed till, by diligence, he might rank
with those of his own age. He was pleased with this assurance, and
felt himself on easier terms with his associates;--for a degree of
shyness hung about him for some time. His manner and temper soon
convinced me, that he might be led by a silken string to a point,
rather than by a cable;--on that principle I acted. After some
continuance at Harrow, and when the powers of his mind had begun to
expand, the late Lord Carlisle, his relation, desired to see me in
town;--I waited on his Lordship. His object was to inform me of Lord
Byron's expectations of property when he came of age, which he
represented as contracted, and to enquire respecting his abilities. On
the former circumstance I made no remark; as to the latter, I replied,
'He has talents, my Lord, which will _add lustre to his rank_.'
'Indeed!!!' said his Lordship, with a degree of surprise, that,
according to my reeling, did not express in it all the satisfaction I
expected.
"The circumstance to which you allude, as to his declamatory powers,
was as follows. The upper part of the school composed declamations,
which, after a revisal by the tutors, were submitted to the master: to
him the authors repeated them, that they might be improved in manner
and action, before their public delivery. I certainly was much pleased
with Lord Byron's attitude, gesture, and delivery, as well as with his
composition. All who spoke on that day adhered, as usual, to the
letter of their composition, as, in the earlier part of his delivery,
did Lord Byron. But to my surprise he suddenly diverged from the
written composition, with a boldness and rapidity sufficient to alarm
me, lest he should fail in memory as to the conclusion. There was no
failure:--he came round to the close of his composition without
discovering any impediment and irregularity on the whole. I questioned
him, why he had altered his declamation? He declared he had made no
alteration, and did not know, in speaking, that he had deviated from
it one letter. I believed him; and from a knowledge of his temperament
am convinced, that, fully impressed with the sense and substance of
the subject, he was hurried on to expressions and colourings more
striking than what his pen had expressed."
In communicating to me these recollections of his illustrious pupil,
Dr. Drury has added a circumstance which shows how strongly, even in
all the pride of his fame, that awe with which he had once regarded
the opinions of his old master still hung around the poet's sensitive
mind:--
"After my retreat from Harrow, I received from him two very
affectionate letters. In my occasional visits subsequently to London,
when he had fascinated the public with his productions, I demanded of
him; why, as in _duty bound_, he had sent none to me? 'Because,' said
he, 'you are the only man I never wish to read them:'--but, in a few
moments, he added--'What do you think of the Corsair?'"
I shall now lay before the reader such notices of his school-life as I
find scattered through the various note-books he has left behind.
Coming, as they do, from his own pen, it is needless to add, that they
afford the liveliest and best records of this period that can be
furnished.
"Till I was eighteen years old (odd as it may seem) I had never read a
review. But while at Harrow, my general information was so great on
modern topics as to induce a suspicion that I could only collect so
much information from _Reviews_, because I was never _seen_ reading,
but always idle, and in mischief, or at play. The truth is, that I
read eating, read in bed, read when no one else read, and had read all
sorts of reading since I was five years old, and yet never _met_ with
a Review, which is the only reason I know of why I should not have
read them. But it is true; for I remember when Hunter and Curzon, in
1804, told me this opinion at Harrow, I made them laugh by my
ludicrous astonishment in asking them '_What is_ a Review?' To be
sure, they were then less common. In three years more, I was better
acquainted with that same; but the first I ever read was in 1806-7.
"At school I was (as I have said) remarked for the extent and
readiness of my _general_ information; but in all other respects idle,
capable of great sudden exertions, (such as thirty or forty Greek
hexa-meters, of course with such prosody as it pleased God,) but of
few continuous drudgeries. My qualities were much more oratorical and
martial than poetical, and Dr. Drury, my grand patron, (our head
master,) had a great notion that I should turn out an orator, from my
fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and
my action.[27] I remember that my first declamation astonished him
into some unwonted (for he was economical of such) and sudden
compliments, before the declaimers at our first rehearsal. My first
Harrow verses, (that is, English, as exercises,) a translation of a
chorus from the Prometheus of Æschylus, were received by him but
coolly. No one had the least notion that I should subside into poesy.
"Peel, the orator and statesman, ('that was, or is, or is to be,') was
my form-fellow, and we were both at the top of our remove (a
public-school phrase). We were on good terms, but his brother was my
intimate friend. There were always great hopes of Peel, amongst us
all, masters and scholars--and he has not disappointed them. As a
scholar he was greatly my superior; as a declaimer and actor, I was
reckoned at least his equal; as a schoolboy, _out_ of school, I was
always _in_ scrapes, and _he never_; and _in school_, he _always_ knew
his lesson, and I rarely,--but when I knew it, I knew it nearly as
well. In general information, history, &c. &c., I think I was _his_
superior, as well as of most boys of my standing.
"The prodigy of our school-days was George Sinclair (son of Sir John);
he made exercises for half the school, (_literally_) verses at will,
and themes without it.... He was a friend of mine, and in the same
remove, and used at times to beg me to let him do my exercise,--a
request always most readily accorded upon a pinch, or when I wanted to
do something else, which was usually once an hour. On the other hand,
he was pacific and I savage; so I fought for him, or thrashed others
for him, or thrashed himself to make him thrash others when it was
necessary, as a point of honour and stature, that he should so
chastise;--or we talked politics, for he was a great politician, and
were very good friends. I have some of his letters, written to me
from school, still.[28]
"Clayton was another school-monster of learning, and talent, and hope;
but what has become of him I do not know. He was certainly a genius.
"My school-friendships were with _me passions_,[29] (for I was always
violent,) but I do not know that there is one which has endured (to be
sure some have been cut short by death) till now. That with Lord Clare
begun one of the earliest, and lasted longest--being only interrupted
by distance--that I know of. I never hear the word '_Clare_' without a
beating of the heart even _now_, and I write it with the feelings of
1803-4-5, ad infinitum."
The following extract is from another of his manuscript journals:--
"At Harrow I fought my way very fairly.[30] I think I lost but one
battle out of seven; and that was to H----;--and the rascal did not
win it, but by the unfair treatment of his own boarding-house, where
we boxed--I had not even a second. I never forgave him, and I should
be sorry to meet him now, as I am sure we should quarrel. My most
memorable combats were with Morgan, Rice, Rainsford, and Lord
Jocelyn,--but we were always friendly afterwards. I was a most
unpopular boy, but _led_ latterly, and have retained many of my school
friendships, and all my dislikes--except to Dr. Butler, whom I treated
rebelliously, and have been sorry ever since. Dr. Drury, whom I
plagued sufficiently too, was the best, the kindest (and yet strict,
too,) friend I ever had--and I look upon him still as a father.
"P. Hunter, Curzon, Long, and Tatersall, were my principal friends.
Clare, Dorset, C^s. Gordon, De Bath, Claridge, and J^no. Wingfield,
were my juniors and favourites, whom I spoilt by indulgence. Of all
human beings, I was, perhaps, at one time, the most attached to poor
Wingfield, who died at Coimbra, 1811, before I returned to England."
One of the most striking results of the English system of education
is, that while in no country are there so many instances of manly
friendships early formed and steadily maintained, so in no other
country, perhaps, are the feelings towards the parental home so early
estranged, or, at the best, feebly cherished. Transplanted as boys are
from the domestic circle, at a time of life when the affections are
most disposed to cling, it is but natural that they should seek a
substitute for the ties of home[31] in those boyish friendships which
they form at school, and which, connected as they are with the scenes
and events over which youth threw its charm, retain ever after the
strongest hold upon their hearts. In Ireland, and I believe also in
France, where the system of education is more domestic, a different
result is accordingly observable:--the paternal home comes in for its
due and natural share of affection, and the growth of friendships, out
of this domestic circle, is proportionably diminished.
To a youth like Byron, abounding with the most passionate feelings,
and finding sympathy with only the ruder parts of his nature at home,
the little world of school afforded a vent for his affections, which
was sure to call them forth in their most ardent form. Accordingly,
the friendships which he contracted, both at school and college, were
little less than what he himself describes them, "passions." The want
he felt at home of those kindred dispositions, which greeted him among
"Ida's social band," is thus strongly described in one of his early
poems[32]:--
"Is there no cause beyond the common claim,
Endear'd to all in childhood's very name?
Ah! sure some stronger impulse vibrates here,
Which whispers, Friendship will be doubly dear
To one who thus for kindred hearts must roam,
And seek abroad the love denied at home:
Those hearts, dear Ida, have I found in thee,
A home, a world, a paradise to me."
This early volume, indeed, abounds with the most affectionate tributes
to his school-fellows. Even his expostulations to one of them, who had
given him some cause for complaint, are thus tenderly conveyed:--
"You knew that my soul, that my heart, my existence,
If danger demanded, were wholly your own;
You know me unaltered by years or by distance,
Devoted to love and to friendship alone.
"You knew--but away with the vain retrospection,
The bond of affection no longer endures.
Too late you may droop o'er the fond recollection,
And sigh for the friend who was formerly yours."
The following description of what he felt after leaving Harrow, when
he encountered in the world any of his old school-fellows, falls far
short of the scene which actually occurred but a few years before his
death in Italy,--when, on meeting with his friend, Lord Clare, after a
long separation, he was affected almost to tears by the recollections
which rushed on him.
"If chance some well remember'd face,
Some old companion of my early race,
Advance to claim his friend with honest joy,
My eyes, my heart proclaim'd me yet a boy;
The glittering scene, the fluttering groups around,
Were all forgotten when my friend was found."
It will be seen, by the extracts from his memorandum-book, which I
have given, that Mr. Peel was one of his contemporaries at Harrow; and
the following interesting anecdote of an occurrence in which both were
concerned, has been related to me by a friend of the latter gentleman,
in whose words I shall endeavour as nearly as possible to give it.
While Lord Byron and Mr. Peel were at Harrow together, a tyrant, some
few years older, whose name was ----, claimed a right to fag little
Peel, which claim (whether rightly or wrongly I know not) Peel
resisted. His resistance, however, was in vain:-- ---- not only
subdued him, but determined also to punish the refractory slave; and
proceeded forthwith to put this determination in practice, by
inflicting a kind of bastinado on the inner fleshy side of the boy's
arm, which, during the operation, was twisted round with some degree
of technical skill, to render the pain more acute. While the stripes
were succeeding each other, and poor Peel writhing under them, Byron
saw and felt for the misery of his friend; and although he knew that
he was not strong enough to fight ---- with any hope of success, and
that it was dangerous even to approach him, he advanced to the scene
of action, and with a blush of rage, tears in his eyes, and a voice
trembling between terror and indignation, asked very humbly if ----
would be pleased to tell him "how many stripes he meant to inflict?"
--"Why," returned the executioner, "you little rascal, what is that to
you?"--"Because, if you please," said Byron, holding out his arm, "I
would take half!"
There is a mixture of simplicity and magnanimity in this little trait
which is truly heroic; and however we may smile at the friendships of
boys, it is but rarely that the friendship of manhood is capable of
any thing half so generous.
Among his school favourites a great number, it may be observed, were
nobles or of noble family--Lords Clare and Delaware, the Duke of
Dorset and young Wingfield--and that their rank may have had some
share in first attracting his regard to them, might appear from a
circumstance mentioned to me by one of his school-fellows, who, being
monitor one day, had put Lord Delaware on his list for punishment.
Byron, hearing of this, came up to him, and said, "Wildman, I find
you've got Delaware on your list--pray don't lick him."--"Why
not?"--"Why, I don't know--except that he is a brother peer. But pray
don't." It is almost needless to add, that his interference, on such
grounds, was anything but successful. One of the few merits, indeed,
of public schools is, that they level, in some degree, these
artificial distinctions, and that, however the peer may have his
revenge in the world afterwards, the young plebeian is, for once, at
least, on something like an equality with him.
It is true that Lord Byron's high notions of rank were, in his boyish
days, so little disguised or softened down, as to draw upon him, at
times, the ridicule of his companions; and it was at Dulwich, I think,
that from his frequent boast of the superiority of an old English
barony over all the later creations of the peerage, he got the
nickname, among the boys, of "the Old English Baron." But it is a
mistake to suppose that, either at school or afterwards, he was at all
guided in the selection of his friends by aristocratic sympathies. On
the contrary, like most very proud persons, he chose his intimates in
general from a rank beneath his own, and those boys whom he ranked as
_friends_ at school were mostly of this description; while the chief
charm that recommended to him his younger favourites was their
inferiority to himself in age and strength, which enabled him to
indulge his generous pride by taking upon himself, when necessary, the
office of their protector.
Among those whom he attached to himself by this latter tie, one of the
earliest (though he has omitted to mention his name) was William
Harness, who at the time of his entering Harrow was ten years of age,
while Byron was fourteen. Young Harness, still lame from an accident
of his childhood, and but just recovered from a severe illness, was
ill fitted to struggle with the difficulties of a public school; and
Byron, one day, seeing him bullied by a boy much older and stronger
than himself, interfered and took his part. The next day, as the
little fellow was standing alone, Byron came to him and said,
"Harness, if any one bullies you, tell me, and I'll thrash him, if I
can." The young champion kept his word, and they were from this time,
notwithstanding the difference of their ages, inseparable friends. A
coolness, however, subsequently arose between them, to which, and to
the juvenile friendship it interrupted, Lord Byron, in a letter
addressed to Harness six years afterwards, alludes with so much kindly
feeling, so much delicacy and frankness, that I am tempted to
anticipate the date of the letter, and give an extract from it here.
"We both seem perfectly to recollect, with a mixture of pleasure and
regret, the hours we once passed together, and I assure you, most
sincerely, they are numbered among the happiest of my brief chronicle
of enjoyment. I am now _getting into years_, that is to say, I was
_twenty_ a month ago, and another year will send me into the world to
run my career of folly with the rest. I was then just fourteen,--you
were almost the _first_ of my Harrow friends, certainly the first in
my esteem, if not in date; but an absence from Harrow for some time,
shortly after, and new connections on your side, and the difference in
our conduct (an advantage decidedly in your favour) from that
turbulent and riotous disposition of mine, which impelled me into
every species of mischief,--all these circumstances combined to
destroy an intimacy, which affection urged me to continue, and memory
compels me to regret. But there is not a circumstance attending that
period, hardly a sentence we exchanged, which is not impressed on my
mind at this moment. I need not say more,--this assurance alone must
convince you, had I considered them as trivial, they would have been
less indelible. How well I recollect the perusal of your 'first
flights!' There is another circumstance you do not know;--the _first
lines_ I ever attempted at Harrow were addressed to _you_. You were to
have seen them; but Sinclair had the copy in his possession when we
went home;--and, on our return, we were _strangers_. They were
destroyed, and certainly no great loss; but you will perceive from
this circumstance my opinions at an age when we cannot be hypocrites.
"I have dwelt longer on this theme than I intended, and I shall now
conclude with what I ought to have begun. We were once friends,--nay,
we have always been so, for our separation was the effect of chance,
not of dissension. I do not know how far our destinations in life may
throw us together, but if opportunity and inclination allow you to
waste a thought on such a hare-brained being as myself, you will find
me at least sincere, and not so bigoted to my faults as to involve
others in the consequences. Will you sometimes write to me? I do not
ask it often; and, if we meet, let us be what we _should_ be, and what
we _were_."
Of the tenaciousness with which, as we see in this letter, he clung to
all the impressions of his youth, there can be no stronger proof than
the very interesting fact, that, while so little of his own boyish
correspondence has been preserved, there were found among his papers
almost all the notes and letters which his principal school
favourites, even the youngest, had ever addressed to him; and, in some
cases, where the youthful writers had omitted to date their scrawls,
his faithful memory had, at an interval of years after, supplied the
deficiency. Among these memorials, so fondly treasured by him, there
is one which it would be unjust not to cite, as well on account of the
manly spirit that dawns through its own childish language, as for the
sake of the tender and amiable feeling which, it will be seen, the
re-perusal of it, in other days, awakened in Byron:--
"TO THE LORD BYRON, &c. &c.
"Harrow on the Hill, July 28. 1805.
"Since you have been so unusually unkind to me, in calling me names
whenever you meet me, of late, I must beg an explanation, wishing to
know whether you choose to be as good friends with me as ever. I must
own that, for this last month, you have entirely cut me,--for, I
suppose, your new cronies. But think not that I will (because you
choose to take into your head some whim or other) be always going up
to you, nor do, as I observe certain other fellows doing, to regain
your friendship; nor think that I am your friend either through
interest, or because you are bigger and older than I am. No,--it
never was so, nor ever shall be so. I was only your friend, and am so
still,--unless you go on in this way, calling me names whenever you
see me. I am sure you may easily perceive I do not like it;
therefore, why should you do it, unless you wish that I should no
longer be your friend? And why should I be so, if you treat me
unkindly? I have no interest in being so. Though you do not let the
boys bully me, yet if _you_ treat me unkindly, that is to me a great
deal worse.
"I am no hypocrite, Byron, nor will I, for your pleasure, ever suffer
you to call me names, if you wish me to be your friend. If not, I
cannot help it. I am sure no one can say that I will cringe to regain
a friendship that you have rejected. Why should I do so? Am I not your
equal? Therefore, what interest can I have in doing so? When we meet
again in the world, (that is, if you choose it,) _you_ cannot advance
or promote _me_, nor I you. Therefore I beg and entreat of you, if you
value my friendship,--which, by your conduct, I am sure I cannot think
you do,--not to call me the names you do, nor abuse me. Till that
time, it will be out of my power to call you friend. I shall be
obliged for an answer as soon as it is convenient; till then
I remain yours,
----
"I cannot say your friend."
Endorsed on this letter, in the handwriting of Lord Byron, is the
following:--
"This and another letter were written at Harrow, by my _then_, and I hope
_ever_, beloved friend, Lord ----, when we were both school-boys, and sent
to my study in consequence of some childish misunderstanding,--the only
one which ever arose between us. It was of short duration, and I retain
this note solely for the purpose of submitting it to his perusal, that we
may smile over the recollection of the insignificance of our first and
last quarrel.
"BYRON."
In a letter, dated two years afterwards, from the same boy,[33] there
occurs the following characteristic trait:--"I think, by your last
letter, that you are very much piqued with most of your friends; and,
if I am not much mistaken, you are a little piqued with me. In one
part you say, 'There is little or no doubt a few years, or months,
will render us as politely indifferent to each other as if we had
never passed a portion of our time together.' Indeed, Byron, you wrong
me, and I have no doubt--at least, I hope--you wrong yourself."
As that propensity to self-delineation, which so strongly pervades his
maturer works is, to the full, as predominant in his early
productions, there needs no better record of his mode of life, as a
school-boy, than what these fondly circumstantial effusions supply.
Thus the sports he delighted and excelled in are enumerated:--
"Yet when confinement's lingering hour was done,
Our sports, our studies, and our souls were one:
Together we impell'd the flying ball,
* * * * *
Together join'd in cricket's manly toil,
Or shared the produce of the river's spoil;
Or, plunging from the green, declining shore,
Our pliant limbs the buoyant waters bore;
In every element, unchanged, the same,
All, all that brothers should be, but the name."
The danger which he incurred in a fight with some of the neighbouring
farmers--an event well remembered by some of his school-fellows--is
thus commemorated.--
"Still I remember, in the factious strife,
The rustic's musket aim'd against my life;
High poised in air the massy weapon hung,
A cry of horror burst from every tongue:
Whilst I, in combat with another foe,
Fought on, unconscious of the impending blow.
Your arm, brave boy, arrested his career--
Forward you sprung, insensible to fear;
Disarm'd and baffled by your conquering hand,
The grovelling savage roll'd upon the sand."
Some feud, it appears, had arisen on the subject of the
cricket-ground, between these "clods" (as in school-language they are
called) and the boys, and one or two skirmishes had previously taken
place. But the engagement here recorded was accidentally brought on by
the breaking up of school and the dismissal of the volunteers from
drill, both happening, on that occasion, at the same hour. This
circumstance accounts for the use of the musket, the butt-end of which
was aimed at Byron's head, and would have felled him to the ground,
but for the interposition of his friend Tatersall, a lively,
high-spirited boy, whom he addresses here under the name of Davus.
Notwithstanding these general habits of play and idleness, which might
seem to indicate a certain absence of reflection and feeling, there
were moments when the youthful poet would retire thoughtfully within
himself, and give way to moods of musing uncongenial with the usual
cheerfulness of his age. They show a tomb in the churchyard at Harrow,
commanding a view over Windsor, which was so well known to be his
favourite resting-place, that the boys called it "Byron's tomb;"[34]
and here, they say, he used to sit for hours, wrapt up in
thought,--brooding lonelily over the first stirrings of passion and
genius in his soul, and occasionally, perhaps, indulging in those
bright forethoughts of fame, under the influence of which, when little
more than fifteen years of age, he wrote these remarkable lines:--
"My epitaph shall be my name alone;
If that with honour fail to crown my clay,
Oh may no other fame my deeds repay;
That, only that, shall single out the spot,
By that remember'd, or with that forgot."
In the autumn of 1802, he passed a short time with his mother at Bath,
and entered, rather prematurely, into some of the gaieties of the
place. At a masquerade given by Lady Riddel, he appeared in the
character of a Turkish boy,--a sort of anticipation, both in beauty
and costume, of his own young Selim, in "The Bride." On his entering
into the house, some person in the crowd attempted to snatch the
diamond crescent from his turban, but was prevented by the prompt
interposition of one of the party. The lady who mentioned to me this
circumstance, and who was well acquainted with Mrs. Byron at that
period, adds the following remark in the communication with which she
has favoured me:--"At Bath I saw a good deal of Lord Byron,--his
mother frequently sent for me to take tea with her. He was always very
pleasant and droll, and, when conversing about absent friends, showed
a slight turn for satire, which after-years, as is well known, gave a
finer edge to."
We come now to an event in his life which, according to his own
deliberate persuasion, exercised a lasting and paramount influence
over the whole of his subsequent character and career.
It was in the year 1803 that his heart, already twice, as we have
seen, possessed with the childish notion that it loved, conceived an
attachment which--young as he was, even then, for such a
feeling--sunk so deep into his mind as to give a colour to all his
future life. That unsuccessful loves are generally the most lasting,
is a truth, however sad, which unluckily did not require this instance
to confirm it. To the same cause, I fear, must be traced the perfect
innocence and romance which distinguish this very early attachment to
Miss Chaworth from the many others that succeeded, without effacing it
in his heart;--making it the only one whose details can be entered
into with safety, or whose results, however darkening their influence
on himself, can be dwelt upon with pleasurable interest by others.
On leaving Bath, Mrs. Byron took up her abode, in lodgings, at
Nottingham,--Newstead Abbey being at that time let to Lord Grey de
Ruthen,--and during the Harrow vacations of this year, she was joined
there by her son. So attached was he to Newstead, that even to be in
its neighbourhood was a delight to him; and before he became
acquainted with Lord Grey, he used sometimes to sleep, for a night, at
the small house near the gate which is still known by the name of "The
Hut."[35] An intimacy, however, soon sprang up between him and his
noble tenant, and an apartment in the abbey was from thenceforth
always at his service. To the family of Miss Chaworth, who resided at
Annesley, in the immediate neighbourhood of Newstead, he had been made
known, some time before, in London, and now renewed his acquaintance
with them. The young heiress herself combined with the many worldly
advantages that encircled her, much personal beauty, and a disposition
the most amiable and attaching. Though already fully alive to her
charms, it was at the period of which we are speaking that the young
poet, who was then in his sixteenth year, while the object of his
admiration was about two years older, seems to have drunk deepest of
that fascination whose effects were to be so lasting;--six short
summer weeks which he now passed in her company being sufficient to
lay the foundation of a feeling for all life.
He used, at first, though offered a bed at Annesley, to return every
night to Newstead, to sleep; alleging as a reason that he was afraid
of the family pictures of the Chaworths,--that he fancied "they had
taken a grudge to him on account of the duel, and would come down from
their frames at night to haunt him."[36] At length, one evening, he
said gravely to Miss Chaworth and her cousin, "In going home last
night I saw a _bogle_;"--which Scotch term being wholly unintelligible
to the young ladies, he explained that he had seen a _ghost_, and
would not therefore return to Newstead that evening. From this time he
always slept at Annesley during the remainder of his visit, which was
interrupted only by a short excursion to Matlock and Castleton, in
which he had the happiness of accompanying Miss Chaworth and her
party, and of which the following interesting notice appears in one of
his memorandum-books:--
"When I was fifteen years of age, it happened that, in a cavern in
Derbyshire, I had to cross in a boat (in which two people only could
lie down) a stream which flows under a rock, with the rock so close
upon the water as to admit the boat only to be pushed on by a ferryman
(a sort of Charon) who wades at the stern, stooping all the time. The
companion of my transit was M.A.C., with whom I had been long in love,
and never told it, though _she_ had discovered it without. I recollect
my sensations, but cannot describe them, and it is as well. We were a
party, a Mr. W., two Miss W.s, Mr. and Mrs. Cl--ke, Miss R. and _my_
M.A.C. Alas! why do I say MY? Our union would have healed feuds in
which blood had been shed by our fathers,--it would have joined lands
broad and rich, it would have joined at least _one_ heart, and two
persons not ill matched in years (she is two years my elder),
and--and--and--_what_ has been the result?"
In the dances of the evening at Matlock, Miss Chaworth, of course,
joined, while her lover sat looking on, solitary and mortified. It is
not impossible, indeed, that the dislike which he always expressed for
this amusement may have originated in some bitter pang, felt in his
youth, on seeing "the lady of his love" led out by others to the gay
dance from which he was himself excluded. On the present occasion, the
young heiress of Annesley having had for her partner (as often happens
at Matlock) some person with whom she was wholly unacquainted, on her
resuming her seat, Byron said to her pettishly, "I hope you like your
friend?" The words were scarce out of his lips when he was accosted by
an ungainly-looking Scotch lady, who rather boisterously claimed him
as "cousin," and was putting his pride to the torture with her
vulgarity, when he heard the voice of his fair companion retorting
archly in his ear, "I hope _you_ like your friend?"
His time at Annesley was mostly passed in riding with Miss Chaworth
and her cousin, sitting in idle reverie, as was his custom, pulling at
his handkerchief, or in firing at a door which opens upon the terrace,
and which still, I believe, bears the marks of his shots. But his
chief delight was in sitting to hear Miss Chaworth play; and the
pretty Welsh air, "Mary Anne," was (partly, of course, on account of
the name) his especial favourite. During all this time he had the pain
of knowing that the heart of her he loved was occupied by
another;--that, as he himself expresses it,
"Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother--but no more."
Neither is it, indeed, probable, had even her affections been
disengaged, that Lord Byron would, at this time, have been selected as
the object of them. A seniority of two years gives to a girl, "on the
eve of womanhood," an advance into life with which the boy keeps no
proportionate pace. Miss Chaworth looked upon Byron as a mere
school-boy. He was in his manners, too, at that period, rough and odd,
and (as I have heard from more than one quarter) by no means popular
among girls of his own age. If, at any moment, however, he had
flattered himself with the hope of being loved by her, a circumstance
mentioned in his "Memoranda," as one of the most painful of those
humiliations to which the defect in his foot had exposed him, must
have let the truth in, with dreadful certainty, upon his heart. He
either was told of, or overheard, Miss Chaworth saying to her maid,
"Do you think I could care any thing for that lame boy?" This speech,
as he himself described it, was like a shot through his heart. Though
late at night when he heard it, he instantly darted out of the house,
and scarcely knowing whither he ran, never stopped till he found
himself at Newstead.
The picture which he has drawn of his youthful love, in one of the
most interesting of his poems, "The Dream," shows how genius and
feeling can elevate the realities of this life, and give to the
commonest events and objects an undying lustre. The old hall at
Annesley, under the name of "the antique oratory," will long call up
to fancy the "maiden and the youth" who once stood in it: while the
image of the "lover's steed," though suggested by the unromantic
race-ground of Nottingham, will not the less conduce to the general
charm of the scene, and share a portion of that light which only
genius could shed over it.
He appears already, at this boyish age, to have been so far a
proficient in gallantry as to know the use that may be made of the
trophies of former triumphs in achieving new ones; for he used to
boast, with much pride, to Miss Chaworth, of a locket which some fair
favourite had given him, and which probably may have been a present
from that pretty cousin, of whom he speaks with such warmth in one of
the notices already quoted. He was also, it appears, not a little
aware of his own beauty, which, notwithstanding the tendency to
corpulence derived from his mother, gave promise, at this time, of
that peculiar expression into which his features refined and kindled
afterwards.
With the summer holidays ended this dream of his youth. He saw Miss
Chaworth once more in the succeeding year, and took his last farewell
of her (as he himself used to relate) on that hill near Annesley[37]
which, in his poem of "The Dream," he describes so happily as
"crowned with a peculiar diadem." No one, he declared, could have told
how _much_ he felt--for his countenance was calm, and his feelings
restrained. "The next time I see you," said he in parting with her, "I
suppose you will be Mrs. Chaworth[38],"--and her answer was, "I hope
so." It was before this interview that he wrote, with a pencil, in a
volume of Madame de Maintenon's letters, belonging to her, the
following verses, which have never, I believe, before been
published:--[39]
"Oh Memory, torture me no more,
The present's all o'ercast;
My hopes of future bliss are o'er,
In mercy veil the past.
Why bring those images to view
I henceforth must resign?
Ah! why those happy hours renew,
That never can be mine?
Past pleasure doubles present pain,
To sorrow adds regret,
Regret and hope are both in vain,
I ask but to--forget."
In the following year, 1805, Miss Chaworth was married to his
successful rival, Mr. John Musters; and a person who was present when
the first intelligence of the event was communicated to him, thus
describes the manner in which he received it.--"I was present when he
first heard of the marriage. His mother said, 'Byron, I have some news
for you.'--'Well, what is it?'--'Take out your handkerchief first,
for you will want it.'--'Nonsense!'--Take out your handkerchief, I
say.' He did so, to humour her. 'Miss Chaworth is married.' An
expression very peculiar, impossible to describe, passed over his pale
face, and he hurried his handkerchief into his pocket, saying, with an
affected air of coldness and nonchalance, 'Is that all?'--'Why, I
expected you would have been plunged in grief!'--He made no reply,
and soon began to talk about something else."
His pursuits at Harrow continued to be of the same truant description
during the whole of his stay there;--"always," as he says himself,
"cricketing, rebelling,[40] _rowing_, and in all manner of mischiefs."
The "rebelling," of which he here speaks, (though it never, I believe,
proceeded to any act of violence,) took place on the retirement of Dr.
Drury from his situation as head master, when three candidates for
the vacant chair presented themselves,--Mark Drury, Evans, and
Butler. On the first movement to which this contest gave rise in the
school, young Wildman was at the head of the party for Mark Drury,
while Byron at first held himself aloof from any. Anxious, however, to
have him as an ally, one of the Drury faction said to Wildman--"Byron,
I know, will not join, because he doesn't choose to act second to any
one, but, by giving up the leadership to him, you may at once secure
him." This Wildman accordingly did, and Byron took the command of the
party.
The violence with which he opposed the election of Dr. Butler on this
occasion (chiefly from the warm affection which he had felt towards
the last master) continued to embitter his relations with that
gentleman during the remainder of his stay at Harrow. Unhappily their
opportunities of collision were the more frequent from Byron's being a
resident in Dr. Butler's house. One day the young rebel, in a fit of
defiance, tore down all the gratings from the window in the hall; and
when called upon by his host to say why he had committed this
violence, answered, with stern coolness, "Because they darkened the
hall." On another occasion he explicitly, and so far manfully, avowed
to this gentleman's face the pique he entertained against him. It has
long been customary, at the end of a term, for the master to invite
the upper boys to dine with him; and these invitations are generally
considered as, like royal ones, a sort of command. Lord Byron,
however, when asked, sent back a refusal, which rather surprising Dr.
Butler, he, on the first opportunity that occurred, enquired of him,
in the presence of the other boys, his motive for this step:--"Have
you any other engagement?"--"No, sir."--"But you must have _some_
reason, Lord Byron."--"I have."--"What is it?"--"Why, Dr. Butler,"
replied the young peer, with proud composure, "if you should happen to
come into my neighbourhood when I was staying at Newstead, I certainly
should not ask you to dine with me, and therefore feel that I ought
not to dine with _you_."[41]
The general character which he bore among the masters at Harrow was that
of an idle boy, who would never learn anything; and, as far as regarded
his tasks in school, this reputation was, by his own avowal, not
ill-founded. It is impossible, indeed, to look through the books which
he had then in use, and which are scribbled over with clumsy interlined
translations, without being struck with the narrow extent of his
classical attainments. The most ordinary Greek words have their English
signification scrawled under them, showing too plainly that he was not
sufficiently familiarised with their meaning to trust himself without
this aid. Thus, in his Xenophon we find {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, _young_--{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~},
_bodies_--{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, _good men_, &c. &c.--and even in the
volumes of Greek plays which he presented to the library on his
departure, we observe, among other instances, the common word {~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
provided with its English representative in the margin.
But, notwithstanding his backwardness in the mere verbal scholarship,
on which so large and precious a portion of life is wasted,[42] in all
that general and miscellaneous knowledge which is alone useful in the
world, he was making rapid and even wonderful progress. With a mind
too inquisitive and excursive to be imprisoned within statutable
limits, he flew to subjects that interested his already manly tastes,
with a zest which it is in vain to expect that the mere pedantries of
school could inspire; and the irregular, but ardent, snatches of study
which he caught in this way, gave to a mind like his an impulse
forwards, which left more disciplined and plodding competitors far
behind. The list, indeed, which he has left on record of the works, in
all departments of literature, which he thus hastily and greedily
devoured before he was fifteen years of age, is such as almost to
startle belief,--comprising, as it does, a range and variety of
study, which might make much older "helluones librorum" hide their
heads.
Not to argue, however, from the powers and movements of a mind like
Byron's, which might well be allowed to take a privileged direction of
its own, there is little doubt, that to _any_ youth of talent and
ambition, the plan of instruction pursued in the great schools and
universities of England, wholly inadequate as it is to the
intellectual wants of the age,[43] presents an alternative of evils
not a little embarrassing. Difficult, nay, utterly impossible, as he
will find it, to combine a competent acquisition of useful knowledge
with that round of antiquated studies which a pursuit of scholastic
honours requires, he must either, by devoting the whole of his
attention and ambition to the latter object, remain ignorant on most
of those subjects upon which mind grapples with mind in life, or by
adopting, as Lord Byron and other distinguished persons have done, the
contrary system, consent to pass for a dunce or idler in the schools,
in order to afford himself even a chance of attaining eminence in the
world.
From the memorandums scribbled by the young poet in his school-books,
we might almost fancy that, even at so early an age, he had a sort of
vague presentiment that everything relating to him would one day be an
object of curiosity and interest. The date of his entrance at
Harrow,[44] the names of the boys who were, at that time, monitors,
the list of his fellow pupils under Doctor Drury,[45]--all are noted
down with a fond minuteness, as if to form points of retrospect in his
after-life; and that he sometimes referred to them with this feeling
will appear from one touching instance. On the first leaf of his
"Scriptores Græci," we find, in his schoolboy hand, the following
memorial:--"George Gordon Byron, Wednesday, June 26th, A. D. 1805, 3
quarters of an hour past 3 o'clock in the afternoon, 3d
school,--Calvert, monitor; Tom Wildman on my left hand and Long on my
right. Harrow on the Hill." On the same leaf, written five years
after, appears this comment:--
"Eheu fugaces, Posthume! Posthume!
Labuntur anni."
"B. January 9th, 1809.--Of the four persons whose names are here
mentioned, one is dead, another in a distant climate, _all_ separated,
and not five years have elapsed since they sat together in school, and
none are yet twenty-one years of age."
The vacation of 1804[46] he passed with his mother at Southwell, to
which place she had removed from Nottingham, in the summer of this
year, having taken the house on the Green called Burgage Manor. There
is a Southwell play-bill extant, dated August 8th, 1804, in which the
play is announced as bespoke "by Mrs. and Lord Byron." The gentleman,
from whom the house where they resided was rented, possesses a library
of some extent, which the young poet, he says, ransacked with much
eagerness on his first coming to Southwell; and one of the books that
most particularly engaged and interested him was, as may be easily
believed, the life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury.
In the month of October, 1805, he was removed to Trinity College,
Cambridge, and his feelings on the change from his beloved Ida to this
new scene of life are thus described by himself:--
"When I first went up to college, it was a new and a heavy-hearted
scene for me: firstly, I so much disliked leaving Harrow, that though
it was time (I being seventeen), it broke my very rest for the last
quarter with counting the days that remained. I always _hated_ Harrow
till the last year and a half, but then I liked it. Secondly, I wished
to go to Oxford, and not to Cambridge. Thirdly, I was so completely
alone in this new world, that it half broke my spirits. My companions
were not unsocial, but the contrary--lively, hospitable, of rank and
fortune, and gay far beyond my gaiety. I mingled with, and dined, and
supped, &c., with them; but, I know not how, it was one of the
deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no
longer a boy."
But though, for a time, he may have felt this sort of estrangement at
Cambridge, to remain long without attaching himself was not in his
nature; and the friendship which he now formed with a youth named
Eddleston, who was two years younger than himself, even exceeded in
warmth and romance all his schoolboy attachments. This boy, whose
musical talents first drew them together, was, at the commencement of
their acquaintance, one of the choir at Cambridge, though he
afterwards, it appears, entered into a mercantile line of life; and
this disparity in their stations was by no means without its charm for
Byron, as gratifying at once both his pride and good-nature, and
founding the tie between them on the mutually dependent relations of
protection on the one side, and gratitude and devotion on the
other;--the only relations,[47] according to Lord Bacon, in which the
little friendship that still remains in the world is to be found. It
was upon a gift presented to him by Eddleston, that he wrote those
verses entitled "The Cornelian," which were printed in his first,
unpublished volume, and of which the following is a stanza:--
"Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties,
Have for my weakness oft reproved me;
Yet still the simple gift I prize,
For I am sure the giver loved me."
Another friendship, of a less unequal kind, which had been begun at
Harrow, and which he continued to cultivate during his first year at
Cambridge, is thus interestingly dwelt upon in one of his journals:--
"How strange are my thoughts!--The reading of the song of Milton,
Sabrina fair,' has brought back upon me--I know not how or why--the
happiest, perhaps, days of my life (always excepting, here and there,
a Harrow holiday in the two latter summers of my stay there) when
living at Cambridge with Edward Noel Long, afterwards of the
Guards,--who, after having served honourably in the expedition to
Copenhagen (of which two or three thousand scoundrels yet survive in
plight and pay), was drowned early in 1809, on his passage to Lisbon
with his regiment in the St. George transport, which was run foul of
in the night by another transport. We were rival swimmers--fond of
riding--reading--and of conviviality. We had been at Harrow together;
but--_there_, at least--his was a less boisterous spirit than mine. I
was always cricketing--rebelling--fighting--_row_ing (from _row_, not
_boat_-rowing, a different practice), and in all manner of mischiefs;
while he was more sedate and polished. At Cambridge--both of
Trinity--my spirit rather softened, or his roughened, for we became
very great friends. The description of Sabrina's seat reminds me of
our rival feats in _diving_. Though Cam's is not a very translucent
wave, it was fourteen feet deep, where we used to dive for, and pick
up--having thrown them in on purpose--plates, eggs, and even
shillings. I remember, in particular, there was the stump of a tree
(at least ten or twelve feet deep) in the bed of the river, in a spot
where we bathed most commonly, round which I used to cling, and
'wonder how the devil I came there.'
"Our evenings we passed in music (he was musical, and played on more
than one instrument, flute and violoncello), in which I was audience;
and I think that our chief beverage was soda-water. In the day we
rode, bathed, and lounged, reading occasionally. I remember our
buying, with vast alacrity, Moore's new quarto (in 1806), and reading
it together in the evenings.
"We only passed the summer together;--Long had gone into the Guards
during the year I passed in Notts, away from college. _His_
friendship, and a violent, though _pure_, love and passion--which held
me at the same period--were the then romance of the most romantic
period of my life.
* * * * *
"I remember that, in the spring of 1809, H---- laughed at my being
distressed at Long's death, and amused himself with making epigrams
upon his name, which was susceptible of a pun--_Long, short_, &c. But
three years after, he had ample leisure to repent it, when our mutual
friend and his, H----'s, particular friend, Charles Matthews, was
drowned also, and he himself was as much affected by a similar
calamity. But _I_ did not pay him back in puns and epigrams, for I
valued Matthews too much myself to do so; and, even if I had not, I
should have respected his griefs.
"Long's father wrote to me to write his son's epitaph. I promised--but
I had not the heart to complete it. He was such a good amiable being
as rarely remains long in this world; with talent and accomplishments,
too, to make him the more regretted. Yet, although a cheerful
companion, he had strange melancholy thoughts sometimes. I remember
once that we were going to his uncle's, I think--I went to accompany
him to the door merely, in some Upper or Lower Grosvenor or Brook
Street, I forget which, but it was in a street leading out of some
square,--he told me that, the night before, he 'had taken up a
pistol--not knowing or examining whether it was loaded or no--and had
snapped it at his head, leaving it to chance whether it might or might
not be charged.' The letter, too, which he wrote me, on leaving
college to join the Guards, was as melancholy in its tenour as it
could well be on such an occasion. But he showed nothing of this in
his deportment, being mild and gentle;--and yet with much turn for the
ludicrous in his disposition. We were both much attached to Harrow,
and sometimes made excursions there together from London to revive our
schoolboy recollections."
These affecting remembrances are contained in a Journal which he kept
during his residence at Ravenna, in 1821, and they are rendered still
more touching and remarkable by the circumstances under which they
were noted down. Domesticated in a foreign land, and even connected
with foreign conspirators, whose arms, at the moment he was writing,
were in his house, he could yet thus wholly disengage himself from the
scene around him, and, borne away by the current of memory into other
times, live over the lost friendships of his boyhood again. An English
gentleman (Mr. Wathen) who called upon him, at one of his residences
in Italy, having happened to mention in conversation that he had been
acquainted with Long, from that moment Lord Byron treated him with the
most marked kindness, and talked with him of Long, and of his amiable
qualities, till (as this gentleman says) the tears could not be
concealed in his eyes.
In the summer of this year (1806) he, as usual, joined his mother at
Southwell,--among the small, but select, society of which place he
had, during his visits, formed some intimacies and friendships, the
memory of which is still cherished there fondly and proudly. With the
exception, indeed, of the brief and bewildering interval which he
passed, as we have seen, in the company of Miss Chaworth, it was at
Southwell alone that an opportunity was ever afforded him of profiting
by the bland influence of female society, or of seeing what woman is
in the true sphere of her virtues, home. The amiable and intelligent
family of the Pigots received him within their circle as one of
themselves: and in the Rev. John Becher[48] the youthful poet found
not only an acute and judicious critic, but a sincere friend. There
were also one or two other families--as the Leacrofts, the
Housons--among whom his talents and vivacity made him always welcome;
and the proud shyness with which, through the whole of his minority,
he kept aloof from all intercourse with the neighbouring gentlemen
seems to have been entirely familiarised away by the small, cheerful
society of Southwell. One of the most intimate and valued of his
friends, at this period, has given me the following account of her
first acquaintance with him:--"The first time I was introduced to him
was at a party at his mother's, when he was so shy that she was forced
to send for him three times before she could persuade him to come into
the drawing-room, to play with the young people at a round game. He
was then a fat bashful boy, with his hair combed straight over his
forehead, and extremely like a miniature picture that his mother had
painted by M. de Chambruland. The next morning Mrs. Byron brought him
to call at our house, when he still continued shy and formal in his
manner. The conversation turned upon Cheltenham, where we had been
staying, the amusements there, the plays, &c.; and I mentioned that I
had seen the character of Gabriel Lackbrain very well performed. His
mother getting up to go, he accompanied her, making a formal bow, and
I, in allusion to the play, said, "Good by, Gaby." His countenance
lighted up, his handsome mouth displayed a broad grin, all his shyness
vanished, never to return, and, upon his mother's saying 'Come, Byron,
are you ready?'--no, she might go by herself, he would stay and talk a
little longer; and from that moment he used to come in and go out at
all hours, as it pleased him, and in our house considered himself
perfectly at home."
To this lady was addressed the earliest letter from his pen that has
fallen into my hands. He corresponded with many of his Harrow
friends,--with Lord Clare, Lord Powerscourt, Mr. William Peel, Mr.
William Bankes, and others. But it was then little foreseen what
general interest would one day attach to these school-boy letters; and
accordingly, as I have already had occasion to lament, there are but
few of them now in existence. The letter, of which I have spoken, to
his Southwell friend, though containing nothing remarkable, is perhaps
for that very reason worth insertion, as serving to show, on comparing
it with most of its successors, how rapidly his mind acquired
confidence in its powers. There is, indeed, one charm for the eye of
curiosity in his juvenile manuscripts, which they necessarily want in
their printed form; and that is the strong evidence of an irregular
education which they exhibit,--the unformed and childish handwriting,
and, now and then, even defective spelling of him who, in a very few
years after, was to start up one of the giants of English literature.
LETTER 1.
TO MISS ----.
Burgage Manor, August 29. 1804.
"I received the arms, my dear Miss ----, and am very much obliged to
you for the trouble you have taken. It is impossible I should have any
fault to find with them. The sight of the drawings gives me great
pleasure for a double reason,--in the first place, they will ornament
my books, in the next, they convince me that you have not entirely
_forgot_ me. I am, however, sorry you do not return sooner--you have
already been gone an _age_. I perhaps may have taken my departure for
London before you come back; but, however, I will hope not. Do not
overlook my watch-riband and purse, as I wish to carry them with me.
Your note was given me by Harry, at the play, whither I attended Miss
L---- and Dr. S. ----; and now I have set down to answer it before I go
to bed. If I am at Southwell when you return,--and I sincerely hope
you will soon, for I very much regret your absence,--I shall be happy
to hear you sing my favourite, 'The Maid of Lodi.' My mother, together
with myself, desires to be affectionately remembered to Mrs. Pigot,
and, believe me, my dear Miss ----,
I remain your affectionate friend,
"BYRON."
"P.S. If you think proper to send me any answer to this, I shall be
extremely happy to receive it. Adieu.
"P.S. 2d. As you say you are a novice in the art of knitting, I hope
it don't give you too much trouble. Go on _slowly_, but surely. Once
more, adieu."
We shall often have occasion to remark the fidelity to early habits
and tastes by which Lord Byron, though in other respects so versatile,
was distinguished. In the juvenile letter, just cited, there are two
characteristics of this kind which he preserved unaltered during the
remainder of his life;--namely, his punctuality in immediately
answering letters, and his love of the simplest ballad music. Among
the chief favourites to which this latter taste led him at this time
were the songs of the Duenna, which he had the good taste to delight
in; and some of his Harrow contemporaries still remember the
joyousness with which, when dining with his friends at the memorable
mother Barnard's, he used to roar out, "This bottle's the sun of our
table."
His visit to Southwell this summer was interrupted, about the
beginning of August, by one of those explosions of temper on the part
of Mrs. Byron, to which, from his earliest childhood, he had been but
too well accustomed, and in producing which his own rebel spirit was
not always, it may be supposed, entirely blameless. In all his
portraits of himself, so dark is the pencil which he employs, that the
following account of his own temper, from one of his journals, must be
taken with a due portion of that allowance for exaggeration, which his
style of self-portraiture, "overshadowing even the shade," requires.
"In all other respects," (he says, after mentioning his infant passion
for Mary Duff,) "I differed not at all from other children, being
neither tall nor short, dull nor witty, of my age, but rather
lively--except in my sullen moods, and then I was always a Devil.
They once (in one of my silent rages) wrenched a knife from me, which
I had snatched from table at Mrs. B.'s dinner (I always dined
earlier), and applied to my breast;--but this was three or four years
after, just before the late Lord B.'s decease.
"My _ostensible_ temper has certainly improved in later years; but I
shudder, and must, to my latest hour, regret the consequence of it and
my passions combined. One event--but no matter--there are others not
much better to think of also--and to them I give the preference....
"But I hate dwelling upon incidents. My temper is now under
management--rarely _loud_, and _when_ loud, never deadly. It is when
silent, and I feel my forehead and my cheek paling, that I cannot
control it; and then.... but unless there is a woman (and not any or
every woman) in the way, I have sunk into tolerable apathy."
Between a temper at all resembling this, and the loud hurricane bursts
of Mrs. Byron, the collision, it may be supposed, was not a little
formidable; and the age at which the young poet was now arrived;
when--as most parents feel--the impatience of youth begins to champ
the bit, would but render the occasions for such shocks more frequent.
It is told, as a curious proof of their opinion of each other's
violence, that, after parting one evening in a tempest of this kind,
they were known each to go privately that night to the apothecary's,
enquiring anxiously whether the other had been to purchase poison,
and cautioning the vender of drugs not to attend to such an
application, if made.
It was but rarely, however, that the young lord allowed himself to be
provoked into more than a passive share in these scenes. To the
boisterousness of his mother he would oppose a civil and, no doubt,
provoking silence,--bowing to her but the more profoundly the higher
her voice rose in the scale. In general, however, when he perceived
that a storm was at hand, in flight lay his only safe resource. To
this summary expedient he was driven at the period of which we are
speaking; but not till after a scene had taken place between him and
Mrs. Byron, in which the violence of her temper had proceeded to
lengths, that, however outrageous they may be deemed, were not, it
appears, unusual with her. The poet, Young, in describing a temper of
this sort, says--
"The cups and saucers, in a whirlwind sent,
Just intimate the lady's discontent."
But poker and tongs were, it seems, the missiles which Mrs. Byron
preferred, and which she, more than once, sent resounding after her
fugitive son. In the present instance, he was but just in time to
avoid a blow aimed at him with the former of these weapons, and to
make a hasty escape to the house of a friend in the neighbourhood;
where, concerting the best means of baffling pursuit, he decided upon
an instant flight to London. The letters, which I am about to give,
were written, immediately on his arrival in town, to some friends at
Southwell, from whose kind interference in his behalf, it may fairly
be concluded that the blame of the quarrel, whatever it may have been,
did not rest with him. The first is to Mr. Pigot, a young gentleman
about the same age as himself, who had just returned, for the
vacation, from Edinburgh, where he was, at that time, pursuing his
medical studies.
LETTER 2.
TO MR. PIGOT.
"16. Piccadilly, August 9. 1806.
"My dear Pigot,
"Many thanks for your amusing narrative of the last proceedings of
----, who now begins to feel the effects of her folly. I have just
received a penitential epistle, to which, apprehensive of pursuit, I
have despatched a moderate answer, with a _kind_ of promise to return
in a fortnight;--this, however (_entre nous_), I never mean to fulfil.
Seriously, your mother has laid me under great obligations, and you,
with the rest of your family, merit my warmest thanks for your kind
connivance at my escape.
"How did S.B. receive the intelligence? How many _puns_ did he utter
on so _facetious_ an event? In your next inform me on this point, and
what excuse you made to A. You are probably, by this time, tired of
deciphering this hieroglyphical letter;--like Tony Lumpkin, you will
pronounce mine to be a d----d up and down hand. All Southwell, without
doubt, is involved in amazement. Apropos, how does my blue-eyed nun,
the fair ----? is she '_robed in sable garb of woe_?'
"Here I remain at least a week or ten days; previous to my departure
you shall receive my address, but what it will be I have not
determined. My lodgings must be kept secret from Mrs. B. You may
present my compliments to her, and say any attempt to pursue me will
fail, as I have taken measures to retreat immediately to Portsmouth,
on the first intimation of her removal from Southwell. You may add, I
have now proceeded to a friend's house in the country, there to remain
a fortnight.
"I have now _blotted_ (I must not say written) a complete double
letter, and in return shall expect a _monstrous budget_. Without
doubt, the dames of Southwell reprobate the pernicious example I have
shown, and tremble lest their _babes_ should disobey their mandates,
and quit, in dudgeon, their mammas on any grievance. Adieu. When you
begin your next, drop the 'lordship,' and put 'Byron' in its place.
Believe me yours, &c.
"BYRON."
From the succeeding letters, it will be seen that Mrs. Byron was not
behind hand, in energy and decision, with his young Lordship, but
immediately on discovering his flight, set off after him.
LETTER 3.
TO MISS ----.
"London, August 10. 1806.
"My dear Bridget,
"As I have already troubled your brother with more than he will find
pleasure in deciphering, you are the next to whom I shall assign the
employment of perusing this second epistle. You will perceive from my
first, that no idea of Mrs. B.'s arrival had disturbed me at the time
it was written; _not_ so the present, since the appearance of a note
from the _illustrious cause_ of my _sudden decampment_ has driven the
'natural ruby from my cheeks,' and completely blanched my woe-begone
countenance. This gun-powder intimation of her arrival breathes less
of terror and dismay than you will probably imagine, and concludes
with the comfortable assurance of all _present motion_ being prevented
by the fatigue of her journey, for which my _blessings_ are due to the
rough roads and restive quadrupeds of his Majesty's highways. As I
have not the smallest inclination to be chased round the country, I
shall e'en make a merit of necessity; and since, like Macbeth,
'they've tied me to the stake, I cannot fly,' I shall imitate that
valorous tyrant, and 'bear-like fight the course,' all escape being
precluded. I can now engage with less disadvantage, having drawn the
enemy from her intrenchments, though, like the _prototype_ to whom I
have compared myself, with an excellent chance of being knocked on the
head. However, 'lay on, Macduff, and d----d be he who first cries,
Hold, enough.'
"I shall remain in town for, at least, a week, and expect to hear from
_you_ before its expiration. I presume the printer has brought you the
offspring of my _poetic mania_. Remember in the first line to '_loud_
the winds whistle,' instead of 'round,' which that blockhead Ridge has
inserted by mistake, and makes nonsense of the whole stanza.
Addio!--Now to encounter my _Hydra_.
Yours ever."
LETTER 4.
TO MR. PIGOT.
"London, Sunday, midnight, August 10. 1806.
"Dear Pigot,
"This _astonishing_ packet will, doubtless, amaze you; but having an
idle hour this evening, I wrote the enclosed stanzas, which I request
you will deliver to Ridge, to be printed _separate_ from my other
compositions, as you will perceive them to be improper for the perusal
of ladies; of course, none of the females of your family must see
them. I offer 1000 apologies for the trouble I have given you in this
and other instances.
Yours truly."
LETTER 5.
TO MR. PIGOT.
"Piccadilly, August 16. 1806.
"I cannot exactly say with Cæsar, 'Veni, vidi, vici:' however, the
most important part of his laconic account of success applies to my
present situation; for, though Mrs. Byron took the _trouble_ of
'_coming_,' and '_seeing_,' yet your humble servant proved the
_victor_. After an obstinate engagement of some hours, in which we
suffered considerable damage, from the quickness of the enemy's fire,
they at length retired in confusion, leaving behind the artillery,
field equipage, and some prisoners: their defeat is decisive for the
present campaign. To speak more intelligibly, Mrs. B. returns
immediately, but I proceed, with all my laurels, to Worthing, on the
Sussex coast; to which place you will address (to be left at the post
office) your next epistle. By the enclosure of a second _gingle_ of
_rhyme_, you will probably conceive my muse to be _vastly prolific_;
her inserted production was brought forth a few years ago, and found
by accident on Thursday among some old papers. I have recopied it,
and, adding the proper date, request it may be printed with the rest
of the family. I thought your sentiments on the last bantling would
coincide with mine, but it was impossible to give it any other garb,
being founded on _facts_. My stay at Worthing will not exceed three
weeks, and you may _possibly_ behold me again at Southwell the middle
of September.
* * * * *
"Will you desire Ridge to suspend the printing of my poems till he
hears further from me, as I have determined to give them a new form
entirely. This prohibition does not extend to the two last pieces I
have sent with my letters to you. You will excuse the _dull vanity_ of
this epistle, as my brain is a _chaos_ of absurd images, and full of
business, preparations, and projects.
"I shall expect an answer with impatience;--believe me, there is
nothing at this moment could give me greater delight than your
letter."
LETTER 6.
TO MR. PIGOT.
"London, August 18. 1806.
"I am just on the point of setting off for Worthing, and write merely
to request you will send that _idle scoundrel Charles_ with my horses
immediately; tell him I am excessively provoked he has not made his
appearance before, or written to inform me of the cause of his delay,
particularly as I supplied him with money for his journey. On _no_
pretext is he to postpone his _march_ one day longer; and if, in
obedience to Mrs. B., he thinks proper to disregard my positive
orders, I shall not, in future, consider him as my servant. He must
bring the surgeon's bill with him, which I will discharge immediately
on receiving it. Nor can I conceive the reason of his not acquainting
Frank with the state of my unfortunate quadrupeds. Dear Pigot, forgive
this _petulant_ effusion, and attribute it to the idle conduct of that
_precious_ rascal, who, instead of obeying my injunctions, is
sauntering through the streets of that _political Pandemonium_,
Nottingham. Present my remembrances to your family and the Leacrofts,
and believe me, &c.
"P.S. I delegate to _you_ the unpleasant task of despatching him on
his journey--Mrs. B.'s orders to the contrary are not to be attended
to: he is to proceed first to London, and then to Worthing, without
delay. Every thing I have _left_ must be sent to London. My _Poetics_
_you_ will _pack up_ for the same place, and not even reserve a copy
for yourself and sister, as I am about to give them an _entire new
form_: when they are complete, you shall have the _first fruits_. Mrs.
B. on no account is to _see_ or touch them. Adieu."
LETTER 7.
TO MR. PIGOT.
"Little Hampton, August 26. 1806.
"I this morning received your epistle, which I was obliged to send for
to Worthing, whence I have removed to this place, on the same coast,
about eight miles distant from the former. You will probably not be
displeased with this letter, when it informs you that I am
30,000_l._ richer than I was at our parting, having just received
intelligence from my lawyer that a cause has been gained at Lancaster
assizes,[49] which will be worth that sum by the time I come of age.
Mrs. B. is, doubtless, acquainted of this acquisition, though not
apprised of its exact _value_, of which she had better be ignorant.
You may give my compliments to her, and say that her detaining my
servant's things shall only lengthen my absence; for unless they are
immediately despatched to 16. Piccadilly, together with those which
have been so long delayed, belonging to myself, she shall never again
behold my _radiant countenance_ illuminating her gloomy mansion. If
they are sent, I may probably appear in less than two years from the
date of my present epistle.
"Metrical compliment is an ample reward for my strains; you are one of
the few votaries of Apollo who unite the sciences over which that
deity presides. I wish you to send my poems to my lodgings in London
immediately, as I have several alterations and some additions to make;
_every_ copy must be sent, as I am about to _amend_ them, and you
shall soon behold them in all their glory. _Entre nous_,--you may
expect to see me soon. Adieu.
Yours ever."
From these letters it will be perceived that Lord Byron was already
engaged in preparing a collection of his poems for the press. The
idea of printing them first occurred to him in the parlour of that
cottage which, during his visits to Southwell, had become his adopted
home. Miss Pigot, who was not before aware of his turn for versifying,
had been reading aloud the poems of Burns, when young Byron said that
"he, too, was a poet sometimes, and would write down for her some
verses of his own which he remembered." He then, with a pencil, wrote
those lines, beginning "In thee I fondly hoped to clasp,"[50] which
were printed in his first unpublished volume, but are not contained in
the editions that followed. He also repeated to her the verses I have
already referred to, "When in the hall my father's voice," so
remarkable for the anticipations of his future fame that glimmer
through them.
From this moment the desire of appearing in print took entire
possession of him;--though, for the present, his ambition did not
extend its views beyond a small volume for private circulation. The
person to whom fell the honour of receiving his first manuscripts was
Ridge, the bookseller, at Newark; and while the work was printing, the
young author continued to pour fresh materials into his hands, with
the same eagerness and rapidity that marked the progress of all his
maturer works.
His return to Southwell, which he announced in the last letter we have
given was but for a very short time. In a week or two after he again
left that place, and, accompanied by his young friend Mr. Pigot, set
out for Harrowgate. The following extracts are from a letter written
by the latter gentleman, at the time to his sister.
"Harrowgate is still extremely full; Wednesday (to-day) is our
ball-night, and I meditate going into the room for an hour, although I
am by no means fond of strange faces. Lord B., you know, is even more
shy than myself; but for an hour this evening I will shake it off....
How do our theatricals proceed? Lord Byron can say _all_ his part, and
I _most_ of mine. He certainly acts it inimitably. Lord B. is now
_poetising_, and, since he has been here, has written some very pretty
verses.[51] He is very good in trying to amuse me as much as possible,
but it is not in my nature to be happy without either female society
or study.... There are many pleasant rides about here, which I have
taken in company with Bo'swain, who, with Brighton,[52] is universally
admired. _You_ must read this to Mrs. B., as it is a little _Tony
Lumpkinish_. Lord B. desires some space left: therefore, with respect
to all the comedians _elect_, believe me to be," &c. &c.
To this letter the following note from Lord Byron was appended:--
"My dear Bridget,
"I have only just dismounted from my _Pegasus_, which has prevented me
from descending to _plain_ prose in an epistle of greater length to
your _fair_ self. You regretted, in a former letter, that my poems
were not more extensive; I now for your satisfaction announce that I
have nearly doubled them, partly by the discovery of some I conceived
to be lost, and partly by some new productions. We shall meet on
Wednesday next; till then believe me yours affectionately,
"BYRON."
"P.S.--Your brother John is seized with a poetic mania, and is now
rhyming away at the rate of three lines _per hour_--so much for
_inspiration_! Adieu!"
By the gentleman, who was thus early the companion and intimate of
Lord Byron, and who is now pursuing his profession with the success
which his eminent talents deserve, I have been favoured with some
further recollections of their visit together to Harrowgate, which I
shall take the liberty of giving in his own words:--
"You ask me to recall some anecdotes of the time we spent together at
Harrowgate in the summer of 1806, on our return from college, he from
Cambridge, and I from Edinburgh; but so many years have elapsed since
then, that I really feel myself as if recalling a distant dream. We, I
remember, went in Lord Byron's own carriage, with post-horses; and he
sent his groom with two saddle-horses, and a beautifully formed, very
ferocious, bull-mastiff, called Nelson, to meet us there.
Boatswain[53] went by the side of his valet Frank on the box, with us.
"The bull-dog, Nelson, always wore a muzzle, and was occasionally sent
for into our private room, when the muzzle was taken off, much to my
annoyance, and he and his master amused themselves with throwing the
room into disorder. There was always a jealous feud between this
Nelson and Boatswain; and whenever the latter came into the room while
the former was there, they instantly seized each other: and then,
Byron, myself, Frank, and all the waiters that could be found, were
vigorously engaged in parting them,--which was in general only
effected by thrusting poker and tongs into the mouths of each. But,
one day, Nelson unfortunately escaped out of the room without his
muzzle, and going into the stable-yard fastened upon the throat of a
horse, from which he could not be disengaged. The stable-boys ran in
alarm to find Frank, who taking one of his Lord's Wogdon's pistols,
always kept loaded in his room, shot poor Nelson through the head, to
the great regret of Byron.
"We were at the Crown Inn, at Low Harrowgate. We always dined in the
public room, but retired very soon after dinner to our private one;
for Byron was no more a friend to drinking than myself. We lived
retired, and made few acquaintance; for he was naturally shy, _very_
shy, which people who did not know him mistook for pride. While at
Harrowgate he accidentally met with Professor Hailstone from
Cambridge, and appeared much delighted to see him. The professor was
at Upper Harrowgate: we called upon him one evening to take him to the
theatre, I think,--and Lord Byron sent his carriage for him, another
time, to a ball at the Granby. This desire to show attention to one of
the professors of his college is a proof that, though he might choose
to satirise the mode of education in the university, and to abuse the
antiquated regulations and restrictions to which under-graduates are
subjected, he had yet a due discrimination in his respect for the
individuals who belonged to it. I have always, indeed, heard him speak
in high terms of praise of Hailstone, as well as of his master, Bishop
Mansel, of Trinity College, and of others whose names I have now
forgotten.
"Few people understood Byron; but I know that he had naturally a kind
and feeling heart, and that there was not a single spark of malice in
his composition."[54]
The private theatricals alluded to in the letters from Harrowgate
were, both in prospect and performance, a source of infinite delight
to him, and took place soon after his return to Southwell. How
anxiously he was expected back by all parties, may be judged from the
following fragment of a letter which was received by his companion
during their absence from home:--
"Tell Lord Byron that, if any accident should retard his return, his
mother desires he will write to her, as she shall be miserable if he
does not arrive the day he fixes. Mr. W. B. has written a card to Mrs.
H. to offer for the character of 'Henry Woodville,'--Mr. and Mrs. ----
not approving of their son's taking a part in the play: but I believe
he will persist in it. Mr. G. W. says, that sooner than the party
should be disappointed, _he_ will take any part,--sing--dance--in
short, do any thing to oblige. Till Lord Byron returns, nothing can be
done; and positively he must not be later than Tuesday or Wednesday."
We have already seen that, at Harrow, his talent for declamation was
the only one by which Lord Byron was particularly distinguished; and
in one of his note-books he adverts, with evident satisfaction, both
to his school displays and to the share which he took in these
representations at Southwell:--
"When I was a youth, I was reckoned a good actor. Besides Harrow
speeches (in which I shone), I enacted Penruddock in the Wheel of
Fortune, and Tristram Fickle in Allingham's farce of the Weathercock,
for three nights (the duration of our compact), in some private
theatricals at Southwell, in 1806, with great applause. The occasional
prologue for our volunteer play was also of my composition. The other
performers were young ladies and gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and
the whole went off with great effect upon our good-natured audience."
It may, perhaps, not be altogether trifling to observe, that, in thus
personating with such success two heroes so different, the young poet
displayed both that love and power of versatility by which he was
afterwards impelled, on a grander scale, to present himself under such
opposite aspects to the world;--the gloom of Penruddock, and the whim
of Tristram, being types, as it were, of the two extremes, between
which his own character, in after-life, so singularly vibrated.
These representations, which form a memorable era at Southwell, took place
about the latter end of September, in the house of Mr. Leacroft, whose
drawing-room was converted into a neat theatre on the occasion, and whose
family contributed some of the fair ornaments of its boards. The prologue
which Lord Byron furnished, and which may be seen in his "Hours of
Idleness," was written by him between stages, on his way from Harrowgate.
On getting into the carriage at Chesterfield, he said to his companion,
"Now, Pigot, I'll spin a prologue for our play;" and before they reached
Mansfield, he had completed his task,--interrupting, only once, his
rhyming reverie, to ask the proper pronunciation of the French word
_début_, and, on being told it, exclaiming, in the true spirit of Byshe,
"Ay, that will do for rhyme to _new_."
The epilogue on the occasion was from the pen of Mr. Becher; and for
the purpose of affording to Lord Byron, who was to speak it, an
opportunity of displaying his powers of mimicry, consisted of
good-humoured portraits of all the persons concerned in the
representation. Some intimation of this design having got among the
actors, an alarm was felt instantly at the ridicule thus in store for
them; and to quiet their apprehensions, the author was obliged to
assure them that if, after having heard his epilogue at rehearsal,
they did not, of themselves, pronounce it harmless, and even request
that it should be preserved, he would most willingly withdraw it. In
the mean time, it was concerted between this gentleman and Lord Byron
that the latter should, on the morning of rehearsal, deliver the
verses in a tone as innocent and as free from all point as
possible,--reserving his mimicry, in which the whole sting of the
pleasantry lay, for the evening of representation. The desired effect
was produced;--all the personages of the green-room were satisfied,
and even wondered how a suspicion of waggery could have attached
itself to so well-bred a production. Their wonder, however, was of a
different nature a night or two after, when, on hearing the audience
convulsed with laughter at this same composition, they discovered, at
last, the trick which the unsuspected mimic had played on them, and
had no other resource than that of joining in the laugh which his
playful imitation of the whole dramatis personæ excited.
The small volume of poems, which he had now for some time been
preparing, was, in the month of November, ready for delivery to the
select few among whom it was intended to circulate; and to Mr. Becher
the first copy of the work was presented.[55] The influence which this
gentleman had, by his love of poetry, his sociability and good sense,
acquired at this period over the mind of Lord Byron, was frequently
employed by him in guiding the taste of his young friend, no less in
matters of conduct than of literature; and the ductility with which
this influence was yielded to, in an instance I shall have to mention,
will show how far from untractable was the natural disposition of
Byron, had he more frequently been lucky enough to fall into hands
that "knew the stops" of the instrument, and could draw out its
sweetness as well as its strength.
In the wild range which his taste was now allowed to take through the
light and miscellaneous literature of the day, it was but natural that
he should settle with most pleasure on those works from which the
feelings of his age and temperament could extract their most congenial
food; and, accordingly, Lord Strangford's Camoëns and Little's Poems
are said to have been, at this period, his favourite study. To the
indulgence of such a taste his reverend friend very laudably opposed
himself,--representing with truth, (as far, at least, as the latter
author is concerned,) how much more worthy models, both in style and
thought, he might find among the established names of English
literature. Instead of wasting his time on the ephemeral productions
of his contemporaries, he should devote himself, his adviser said, to
the pages of Milton and of Shakspeare, and, above all, seek to elevate
his fancy and taste by the contemplation of the sublimer beauties of
the Bible. In the latter study, this gentleman acknowledges that his
advice had been, to a great extent, anticipated, and that with the
poetical parts of the Scripture he found Lord Byron deeply
conversant:--a circumstance which corroborates the account given by
his early master, Dr. Glennie, of his great proficiency in scriptural
knowledge while yet but a child under his care.
To Mr. Becher, as I have said, the first copy of his little work was
presented; and this gentleman, in looking over its pages, among many
things to commend and admire, as well as some almost too boyish to
criticise, found one poem in which, as it appeared to him, the
imagination of the young bard had indulged itself in a luxuriousness
of colouring beyond what even youth could excuse. Immediately, as the
most gentle mode of conveying his opinion, he sat down and addressed
to Lord Byron some expostulatory verses on the subject, to which an
answer, also in verse, was returned by the noble poet as promptly,
with, at the same time, a note in plain prose, to say that he felt
fully the justice of his reverend friend's censure, and that, rather
than allow the poem in question to be circulated, he would instantly
recall all the copies that had been sent out, and cancel the whole
impression. On the very same evening this prompt sacrifice was carried
into effect;--Mr. Becher saw every copy of the edition burned, with
the exception of that which he retained in his own possession, and
another which had been despatched to Edinburgh, and could not be
recalled.
This trait of the young poet speaks sufficiently for itself;--the
sensibility, the temper, the ingenuous pliableness which it exhibits,
show a disposition capable, by nature, of every thing we most respect
and love.
Of a no less amiable character were the feelings that, about this time,
dictated the following letter;--a letter which it is impossible to peruse
without acknowledging the noble candour and conscientiousness of the
writer:--
LETTER 8.
TO THE EARL OF CLARE.
"Southwell, Notts, February 6. 1807.
"My dearest Clare,
"Were I to make all the apologies necessary to atone for my late
negligence, you would justly say you had received a petition instead
of a letter, as it would be filled with prayers for forgiveness; but
instead of this, I will acknowledge my _sins_ at once, and I trust to
your friendship and generosity rather than to my own excuses. Though
my health is not perfectly re-established, I am out of all danger, and
have recovered every thing but my spirits, which are subject to
depression. You will be astonished to hear I have lately written to
Delawarre, for the purpose of explaining (as far as possible without
involving some _old friends_ of mine in the business) the cause of my
behaviour to him during my last residence at Harrow (nearly two years
ago), which you will recollect was rather '_en cavalier_.' Since that
period, I have discovered he was treated with injustice both by those
who misrepresented his conduct, and by me in consequence of their
suggestions. I have therefore made all the reparation in my power, by
apologising for my mistake, though with very faint hopes of success;
indeed I never expected any answer, but desired one for form's sake;
_that_ has not yet arrived, and most probably never will. However, I
have _eased_ my own _conscience_ by the atonement, which is
humiliating enough to one of my disposition; yet I could not have
slept satisfied with the reflection of having, _even unintentionally_,
injured any individual. I have done all that could be done to repair
the injury, and there the affair must end. Whether we renew our
intimacy or not is of very trivial consequence.
"My time has lately been much occupied with very different pursuits. I
have been _transporting_ a servant,[56] who cheated me,--rather a
disagreeable event;--performing in private theatricals;--publishing a
volume of poems (at the request of my friends, for their
perusal);--making _love_,--and taking physic. The two last amusements
have not had the best effect _in the world_; for my attentions have
been divided amongst so many _fair damsels_, and the drugs I swallow
are of such variety in their composition, that between Venus and
Aesculapius I am harassed to death. However, I have still leisure to
devote some hours to the recollections of past, regretted
friendships, and in the interval to take the advantage of the moment,
to assure you how much I am, and ever will be, my dearest Clare,
"Your truly attached and sincere
"BYRON."
Considering himself bound to replace the copies of his work which he
had withdrawn, as well as to rescue the general character of the
volume from the stigma this one offender might bring upon it, he set
instantly about preparing a second edition for the press, and, during
the ensuing six weeks, continued busily occupied with his task. In the
beginning of January we find him forwarding a copy to his friend, Dr.
Pigot, in Edinburgh:--
LETTER 9.
TO MR. PIGOT.
"Southwell, Jan. 13. 1807.
"I ought to begin with _sundry_ apologies, for my own negligence, but
the variety of my avocations in _prose_ and _verse_ must plead my
excuse. With this epistle you will receive a volume of all my
_Juvenilia_, published since your departure: it is of considerably
greater size than the _copy_ in your possession, which I beg you will
destroy, as the present is much more complete. That _unlucky_ poem to
my poor Mary[57] has been the cause of some animadversion from
_ladies in years_. I have not printed it in this collection, in
consequence of my being pronounced a most _profligate sinner_, in
short, a '_young Moore_,' by ----, your ---- friend. I believe, in
general, they have been favourably received, and surely the age of
their author will preclude _severe_ criticism. The adventures of my
life from sixteen to nineteen, and the dissipation into which I have
been thrown in London, have given a voluptuous tint to my ideas; but
the occasions which called forth my muse could hardly admit any other
colouring. This volume is _vastly_ correct and miraculously chaste.
Apropos, talking of love,...
"If you can find leisure to answer this farrago of unconnected
nonsense, you need not doubt what gratification will accrue from your
reply to yours ever," &c.
To his young friend, Mr. William Bankes, who had met casually with a
copy of the work, and wrote him a letter conveying his opinion of it,
he returned the following answer:--
LETTER 10.
TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES.
"Southwell, March 6. 1807.
"Dear Bankes,
"Your critique is valuable for many reasons: in the first place, it is
the only one in which flattery has borne so slight a part; in the
_next_, I am _cloyed_ with insipid compliments. I have a better
opinion of your judgment and ability than your _feelings_. Accept my
most sincere thanks for your kind decision, not less welcome, because
totally unexpected. With regard to a more exact estimate, I need not
remind you how few of the _best poems_, in our language, will stand
the test of _minute_ or _verbal_ criticism: it can, therefore, hardly
be expected the effusions of a boy (and most of these pieces have been
produced at an early period) can derive much merit either from the
subject or composition. Many of them were written under great
depression of spirits, and during severe indisposition:--hence the
gloomy turn of the ideas. We coincide in opinion that the '_poësies
érotiques_' are the most exceptionable; they were, however, grateful
to the _deities_, on whose altars they were offered--more I seek not.
"The portrait of Pomposus was drawn at Harrow, after a _long sitting_;
this accounts for the resemblance, or rather the _caricatura_. He is
_your_ friend, he _never was mine_--for both our sakes I shall be
silent on this head. _The collegiate_ rhymes are not personal--one of
the notes may appear so, but could not be omitted. I have little doubt
they will be deservedly abused--a just punishment for my unfilial
treatment of so excellent an Alma Mater. I sent you no copy, lest _we_
should be placed in the situation of _Gil Blas_ and the _Archbishop_
of Grenada; though running some hazard from the experiment, I wished
your _verdict_ to be unbiassed. Had my '_Libellus_' been presented
previous to your letter, it would have appeared a species of bribe to
purchase compliment. I feel no hesitation in saying, I was more
anxious to hear your critique, however severe, than the praises of
the _million_. On the same day I was honoured with the encomiums of
_Mackenzie_, the celebrated author of the 'Man of Feeling.' Whether
_his_ approbation or _yours_ elated me most, I cannot decide.
"You will receive my _Juvenilia_,--at least all yet published. I have
a large volume in manuscript, which may in part appear hereafter; at
present I have neither time nor inclination to prepare it for the
press. In the spring I shall return to Trinity, to dismantle my rooms,
and bid you a final adieu. The _Cam_ will not be much increased by my
_tears_ on the occasion. Your further remarks, however _caustic_ or
bitter, to a palate vitiated with the _sweets of adulation_, will be
of service. Johnson has shown us that _no poetry_ is perfect; but to
correct mine would be an Herculean labour. In fact I never looked
beyond the moment of composition, and published merely at the request
of my friends. Notwithstanding so much has been said concerning the
'Genus irritabile vatum,' we shall never quarrel on the
subject--poetic fame is by no means the 'acme' of my wishes. Adieu.
"Yours ever,
"BYRON."
This letter was followed by another, on the same subject, to Mr.
Bankes, of which, unluckily, only the annexed fragment remains:--
* * * * *
"For my own part, I have suffered severely in the decease of my two
greatest friends, the only beings I ever loved (females excepted); I
am therefore a solitary animal, miserable enough, and so perfectly a
citizen of the world, that whether I pass my days in Great Britain or
Kamschatka, is to me a matter of perfect indifference. I cannot evince
greater respect for your alteration than by immediately adopting
it--this shall be done in the next edition. I am sorry your remarks
are not more frequent, as I am certain they would be equally
beneficial. Since my last, I have received two critical opinions from
Edinburgh, both too flattering for me to detail. One is from Lord
Woodhouselee, at the head of the Scotch literati, and a most
_voluminous_ writer (his last work is a life of Lord Kaimes); the
other from Mackenzie, who sent his decision a second time, more at
length. I am not personally acquainted with either of these gentlemen,
nor ever requested their sentiments on the subject: their praise is
voluntary, and transmitted through the medium of a friend, at whose
house they read the productions.
"Contrary to my former intention, I am now preparing a volume for the
public at large: my amatory pieces will be exchanged, and others
substituted in their place. The whole will be considerably enlarged,
and appear the latter end of May. This is a hazardous experiment; but
want of better employment, the encouragement I have met with, and my
own vanity, induce me to stand the test, though not without _sundry
palpitations_. The book will circulate fast enough in this country,
from mere curiosity, what I prin--"[58]
* * * * *
The following modest letter accompanied a copy which he presented to
Mr. Falkner, his mother's landlord:--
LETTER 11.
TO MR. FALKNER.
"Sir,
"The volume of little pieces which accompanies this, would have been
presented before, had I not been apprehensive that Miss Falkner's
indisposition might render such trifles unwelcome. There are some
errors of the printer which I have not had time to correct in the
collection: you have it thus, with 'all its imperfections on its
head,' a heavy weight, when joined with the faults of its author. Such
'Juvenilia,' as they can claim no great degree of approbation, I may
venture to hope, will also escape the severity of uncalled for, though
perhaps _not_ undeserved, criticism.
"They were written on many and various occasions, and are now
published merely for the perusal of a friendly circle. Believe me,
sir, if they afford the slightest amusement to yourself and the rest
of my _social_ readers, I shall have gathered all the _bays_ I ever
wish to adorn the head of yours,
very truly,
"BYRON.
"P.S.--I hope Miss F. is in a state of recovery."
Notwithstanding this unambitious declaration of the young author, he
had that within which would not suffer him to rest so easily; and the
fame he had now reaped within a limited circle made him but more eager
to try his chance on a wider field. The hundred copies of which this
edition consisted were hardly out of his hands, when with fresh
activity he went to press again,--and his first published volume, "The
Hours of Idleness," made its appearance. Some new pieces which he had
written in the interim were added, and no less than twenty of those
contained in the former volume omitted;--for what reason does not very
clearly appear, as they are, most of them, equal, if not superior, to
those retained.
In one of the pieces, reprinted in the "Hours of Idleness," there are
some alterations and additions, which, as far as they may be supposed
to spring from the known feelings of the poet respecting birth, are
curious. This poem, which is entitled "Epitaph on a Friend," appears,
from the lines I am about to give, to have been, in its original
state, intended to commemorate the death of the same lowly born youth,
to whom some affectionate verses, cited in a preceding page, were
addressed:--
"Though low thy lot, since in a cottage born,
No titles did thy humble name adorn;
To me, far dearer was thy artless love
Than all the joys wealth, fame, and friends could prove."
But, in the altered form of the epitaph, not only this passage, but
every other containing an allusion to the low rank of his young
companion, is omitted; while, in the added parts, the introduction of
such language as
"What, though thy sire lament his failing line,"
seems calculated to give an idea of the youth's station in life,
wholly different from that which the whole tenour of the original
epitaph warrants. The other poem, too, which I have mentioned,
addressed evidently to the same boy, and speaking in similar terms, of
the "lowness" of his "lot," is, in the "Hours of Idleness," altogether
omitted. That he grew more conscious of his high station, as he
approached to manhood, is not improbable; and this wish to sink his
early friendship with the young cottager may have been a result of
that feeling.
As his visits to Southwell were, after this period, but few and
transient, I shall take the present opportunity of mentioning such
miscellaneous particulars respecting his habits and mode of life,
while there, as I have been able to collect.
Though so remarkably shy, when he first went to Southwell, this
reserve, as he grew more acquainted with the young people of the
place, wore off; till, at length, he became a frequenter of their
assemblies and dinner-parties, and even felt mortified if he heard of
a rout to which he was not invited. His horror, however, at new faces
still continued; and if, while at Mrs. Pigot's, he saw strangers
approaching the house, he would instantly jump out of the window to
avoid them. This natural shyness concurred with no small degree of
pride to keep him aloof from the acquaintance of the gentlemen in the
neighbourhood, whose visits, in more than one instance, he left
unreturned;--some under the plea that their ladies had not visited his
mother; others, because they had neglected to pay him this compliment
sooner. The true reason, however, of the haughty distance, at which,
both now and afterwards, he stood apart from his more opulent
neighbours, is to be found in his mortifying consciousness of the
inadequacy of his own means to his rank, and the proud dread of being
made to feel this inferiority by persons to whom, in every other
respect, he knew himself superior. His friend, Mr. Becher, frequently
expostulated with him on this unsociableness; and to his
remonstrances, on one occasion, Lord Byron returned a poetical answer,
so remarkably prefiguring the splendid burst, with which his own
volcanic genius opened upon the world, that as the volume containing
the verses is in very few hands, I cannot resist the temptation of
giving a few extracts here:--
"Dear Becher, you tell me to mix with mankind,--
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind,
And I will not descend to a world I despise.
"Did the Senate or Camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me at once to go forth;
And, when infancy's years of probation expire,
Perchance, I may strive to distinguish my birth.
_"The fire, in the cavern of Ætna concealed,
Still mantles unseen, in its secret recess;--
At length, in a volume terrific revealed,
No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.
"Oh thus, the desire in my bosom for fame
Bids me live but to hope for Posterity's praise;
Could I soar, with the Phoenix, on pinions of flame,
With him I would wish to expire in the blaze._
"For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,
What censure, what danger, what woe would I brave?
Their lives did not end when they yielded their breath,--
Their glory illumines the gloom of the grave!"
In his hours of rising and retiring to rest he was, like his mother,
always very late; and this habit he never altered during the remainder
of his life. The night, too, was at this period, as it continued
afterwards, his favourite time for composition; and his first visit in
the morning was generally paid to the fair friend who acted as his
amanuensis, and to whom he then gave whatever new products of his
brain the preceding night might have inspired. His next visit was
usually to his friend Mr. Becher's, and from thence to one or two
other houses on the Green, after which the rest of the day was devoted
to his favourite exercises. The evenings he usually passed with the
same family, among whom he began his morning, either in conversation,
or in hearing Miss Pigot play upon the piano-forte, and singing over
with her a certain set of songs which he admired,[59]--among which
the "Maid of Lodi," (with the words, "My heart with love is beating,")
and "When Time who steals our years away," were, it seems, his
particular favourites. He appears, indeed, to have, even thus early,
shown a decided taste for that sort of regular routine of
life,--bringing round the same occupations at the stated
periods,--which formed so much the system of his existence during the
greater part of his residence abroad.
Those exercises, to which he flew for distraction in less happy days,
formed his enjoyment now; and between swimming, sparring, firing at a
mark, and riding,[60] the greater part of his time was passed. In the
last of these accomplishments he was by no means very expert. As an
instance of his little knowledge of horses, it is told, that, seeing a
pair one day pass his window, he exclaimed, "What beautiful horses! I
should like to buy them."--"Why, they are your own, my Lord," said his
servant. Those who knew him, indeed, at that period, were rather
surprised, in after-life, to hear so much of his riding;--and the
truth is, I am inclined to think, that he was at no time a very adroit
horse-man.
In swimming and diving we have already seen, by his own accounts, he
excelled; and a lady in Southwell, among other precious relics of him,
possesses a thimble which he borrowed of her one morning, when on his
way to bathe in the Greet, and which, as was testified by her brother,
who accompanied him, he brought up three times successively from the
bottom of the river. His practice of firing at a mark was the
occasion, once, of some alarm to a very beautiful young person, Miss
H.,--one of that numerous list of fair ones by whom his imagination
was dazzled while at Southwell. A poem relating to this occurrence,
which may be found in his unpublished volume, is thus introduced:--"As
the author was discharging his pistols in a garden, two ladies,
passing near the spot, were alarmed by the sound of a bullet hissing
near them, to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the
next morning."
Such a passion, indeed, had he for arms of every description, that
there generally lay a small sword by the side of his bed, with which
he used to amuse himself, as he lay awake in the morning, by thrusting
it through his bed-hangings. The person who purchased this bed at the
sale of Mrs. Byron's furniture, on her removal to Newstead, gave
out--with the view of attaching a stronger interest to the holes in
the curtains--that they were pierced by the same sword with which the
old lord had killed Mr. Chaworth, and which his descendant always kept
as a memorial by his bedside. Such is the ready process by which
fiction is often engrafted upon fact;--the sword in question being a
most innocent and bloodless weapon, which Lord Byron, during his
visits at Southwell, used to borrow of one of his neighbours.
His fondness for dogs--another fancy which accompanied him through
life--may be judged from the anecdotes already given, in the account
of his expedition to Harrowgate. Of his favourite dog Boatswain, whom
he has immortalised in verse, and by whose side it was once his
solemn purpose to be buried, some traits are told, indicative, not
only of intelligence, but of a generosity of spirit, which might well
win for him the affections of such a master as Byron. One of these I
shall endeavour to relate as nearly as possible as it was told to me.
Mrs. Byron had a fox-terrier, called Gilpin, with whom her son's dog,
Boatswain, was perpetually at war,[61] taking every opportunity of
attacking and worrying him so violently, that it was very much
apprehended he would kill the animal. Mrs. Byron therefore sent off
her terrier to a tenant at Newstead; and on the departure of Lord
Byron for Cambridge, his "friend" Boatswain, with two other dogs, was
intrusted to the care of a servant till his return. One morning the
servant was much alarmed by the disappearance of Boatswain, and
throughout the whole of the day he could hear no tidings of him. At
last, towards evening, the stray dog arrived, accompanied by Gilpin,
whom he led immediately to the kitchen fire, licking him and lavishing
upon him every possible demonstration of joy. The fact was, he had
been all the way to Newstead to fetch him; and having now established
his former foe under the roof once more, agreed so perfectly well with
him ever after, that he even protected him against the insults of
other dogs (a task which the quarrelsomeness of the little terrier
rendered no sinecure), and, if he but heard Gilpin's voice in
distress, would fly instantly to his rescue.
In addition to the natural tendency to superstition, which is usually
found connected with the poetical temperament, Lord Byron had also the
example and influence of his mother, acting upon him from infancy, to
give his mind this tinge. Her implicit belief in the wonders of second
sight, and the strange tales she told of this mysterious faculty, used
to astonish not a little her sober English friends; and it will be
seen, that, at so late a period as the death of his friend Shelley,
the idea of fetches and forewarnings impressed upon him by his mother
had not wholly lost possession of the poet's mind. As an instance of a
more playful sort of superstition I may be allowed to mention a slight
circumstance told me of him by one of his Southwell friends. This lady
had a large agate bead with a wire through it, which had been taken
out of a barrow, and lay always in her work-box. Lord Byron asking one
day what it was, she told him that it had been given her as an amulet,
and the charm was, that as long as she had this bead in her
possession, she should never be in love. "Then give it to me," he
cried, eagerly, "for that's just the thing I want." The young lady
refused;--but it was not long before the bead disappeared. She taxed
him with the theft, and he owned it; but said, she never should see
her amulet again.
Of his charity and kind-heartedness he left behind him at
Southwell--as, indeed, at every place, throughout life, where he
resided any time--the most cordial recollections. "He never," says a
perso
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